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INDEX 



3. Hutcom. Narrows «. Scotchman'. Tr.p 

3. Kentucky Cliff,; and the 44. Fat Man's Misery 

Corkscrew ., _ , „ ,, "» 

4. The Church £ B"d, HaM 

5. Booth'. Amphitheatre ^ c'fl!' n""" 
«. c. j- n 1 , '* t-naiiet s Dome 

6. Standing Rock. < 8 . Wyatf.Dome. 

7. Grand Arch «, BaUnced Rock 
^^^"d Dante's SO. The Dead Sea 

.. Acute Ang'e and Cottage. »£ ^'^ 




10. Proctor'. Arcade 
It. Wright'. Rotund* 
13. The Cataract. 
U. Fairy Crotto 
M. St. Catherine City 

15. Symmes' Pit 

16. Mummy's Niche 

17. Regi.terHall 

18. The Bridal Altar 

19. The Arm Chair 
30. Lover*. Leap 
21. Elbe CrtJice 
32. Napoleon'. Dome 
23. Wilson's Way 
34. Lake Purity 

25. Annette Dome 
36. Lee's Cisterns 

27. Wooden Bowl Room 

28. The Lost Way Found 

29. Way to Pits and Domes 
JO. Side-Saddle Pit 

31. Bottomless Pit 

32. Covered Pit 

33. Scylla 

34. CharybdU 

35. Putnam's Cabinet 

36. Damall's Way 

37. Ariadne's Crotto 



Cascade w*' i 

53. Serpent Hall 

54. Valley-way Side-cut 

55. The Creat Western 

56. Vale o( Flowers 

57. The Jessup Domes 

58. Ole Bull's Concert Hall 

59. Fly Chamber 
«0. Sheep Shelter 

61. Corinae's Done 

62. Black Hole of Calcutta 

63. Parrish's Path 

64. Crypt of Jewels 

65. Washington Hall 

66. Snow Ball Room 

67. Floral Cross 

68. Orpha's Garden 

69. Wisdom's Path 

70. Paradise 

71. Zoe's Grotto 

72. Flora's Gardtia 

73. Vale of Diamonds 

74. Helen's Hall 

75. Char-lotto's Grotto 

76. Serena's Arbor 

77. Dismal Hollow 

78. Clark's Avenue 
Harlan's Avenue 



38. Short cut from Bottomlea. go £???'.*?" 
Pit to Gorir.'. r>™. 80 - Nicholson's Ave. 



Pit to Gorln's Dome 

39. Reveller's Hall 

40. Grand Crossing 

41. Pineapple Bush 



M 



ammo 



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ave 



OF KENTUCKY 




(Hovey and Call) 

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF COLOSSAL 
CAVERN 

REVISED EDITION 




(By HORACE CARTER HOVEY, D. D., F. G. S. A. 

1912 



With Historical [Njotes. Scenic Accounts. descriptive and 
Scientific ^Catters of Interest to "Visitors, based upon new and 
original explorations. s$ v^ v<? v^ s^ Ng v^ 



LOUISVILLE 
JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY 

INCORPORATED 






COPYRIGHTED 1912 

BY JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY 

INCORPORATED. 






©CI.A312956 



PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 

In 1897 two cave-hunters, Horace Carter Hovey and 
Richard Ellsworth Call, at first separately then jointly, 
prepared a manual of the Mammoth Cave. Both of them 
had made frequent and prolonged visits to the Cave, 
and were able to say that they had personally seen 
every part of it then known. They had previously 
written articles for popular and scientific periodicals, 
and their membership in scientific societies in this and 
other lands aided their research. Originally their work 
was of composite authorship, in the sense that any 
chapter written by one would be revised by the other. 
Their aim was to give the latest and most exact word 
as to cavern history and scenery, heights, depths, dis- 
tances, and magnitudes. Facts not for the first time 
found here in print were compiled from authentic 
sources with acknowledgments. 

During the fourteen years that have elapsed since 
then changes and discoveries have been made that de- 
manded a revision of the original manual, and by mutual 
agreement this task fell to the lot of the senior author. 
Numerous alterations have been made in the text, sub- 
ject-matter has been rearranged, and much new material 
has been added. Throughout this revision it has been 
my desire to give ample credit to my former co-laborer, 
though it has not been deemed essential to give by name 
the exact authorship of the several chapters, further 
than by means of the preliminary Synopsis. Many of 
the drawings and photographs of cave fauna were pre- 
pared by or for Dr. Call, though for those of the blind fish 
we are indebted to Dr. Eigenmann and the courtesy 

(iii) 



iV PREFACE. 

of the Carnegie Institution. Thanks are due to Messrs. 
Albert C. Janin and Henry C. Ganter for the use of 
copyrighted cuts (mainly by the late Ben Hains), as 
well as for personal attentions. Renewed recognition 
is given to the officials of the Louisville & Nashville 
Railroad for transportation and other facilities accorded 
in the earlier and the later work done in preparing this 
volume. 

The general Guide-Map of the Cave, made by me 
after consulting former maps, and with certain cor- 
rections suggested by Mr. Max Kaemper, brings Cave 
cartography down to the present time. As the Cave is 
now exhibited by four routes, instead of by two, this 
has been indicated, as far as practicable, by textual, 
changes and foot-notes ; and it is made still more clear 
by the special charts of these routes. 

Any one wishing a less expensive Manual, prepared 
expressly for the guidance of visitors over the regulation 
routes, is referred to my small Handbook, published by 
John P. Morton & Company. For terms of exhibition 
and hotel rates, apply to the Manager of the Mammoth 
Cave, Kentucky. 

Horace Carter Hovey. 

Newburyport, Mass. 



SYNOPSIS 

1. General Map; and Route Charts. (Hovey.) 

2. The Cavern Region of Kentucky, and Cave- 

Making. ( Hovey. ) 

3. Historical Sketch and Environment. (Hovey 

and Call.) 

4. The Route of Pits and Domes. (Call.) 

5. The Main Cave Route ; to Chief City and Violet 

City. (Hovey.) 

6. The River Route, to the Maelstrom and Hovey 's 

Cathedral. (Hovey.) 

7. The Natural History of the Cave ; its Fauna and 

Flora. (Call.) 

8. Blind Animals ; their Environment and Devolu- 

tion. (Hovey.) 

9. The Colossal Cavern. (Hovey.) 



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THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY 
AND CAVE MAKING 

LARGE caverns are limited to regions favorable to 
the process of cave-making. Kentucky is pecul- 
" iarly such a region. Along rocky sea-coasts 
grottoes are numerous and often beautiful. But the 
mighty billows that carve the granite into natural tun- 
nels, or spouting horns, or fantastic arches, also break 
down their own products, and transform grottoes into 
chasms, embayments, or straits. This destructive 
agency has been so vigorously active along the Atlantic 
coast that not a cavern can be found, from the Bay of 
Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico, deep enough to exclude 
the daylight. With ice caves, and those formed in 
lava-beds, or among coral islands, and in granitic regions, 
we need not here concern ourselves. 

Limestone regions vary according to their exemp- 
tion from or exposure to mountain-making forces. 
The limestones of Virginia, for instance, have been 
upheaved and shaken by orogenic action until they are 
cracked and fissured by seams running in every direc- 
tion. These were easily enlarged by the action of water, 
and were thus developed into countless grottoes, some of 
which have gained a world-wide celebrity. But the 
fractured condition of the rocks limited the process of 
cave-making; and in size the Virginia caves are insignifi- 
cant, compared with the enormous excavations found 
in the homogeneous and nearly undisturbed limestone 
regions of Kentucky and other States of the central West. 

Then, again, the conditions of the country rock vary 
as we descend the valley of the Ohio. About Cincin- 
nati and Covington the Lower Silurian limestones are 



Z MAMMOTH CAVE. 

presented in thin, fragile strata, with variable layers of 
shale between; and in these it would be almost impos- 
sible for even small grottoes to grow. But when this 
terrane meets the Upper Silurian, as at Madison, Indi- 
ana, the massive upper ledges resist decomposition, 
while the underlying softer strata are easily eroded; 
and the result is seen in some of the most picturesque 
grottoes in the world. Rising in the geological horizon 
while descending the valley, we enter the most exten- 
sive cave region on the globe. The Ohio River tran- 
sects this territory in such a manner that three fourths 
of it lies in Kentucky, while the remaining fourth is 
divided between Indiana and Tennessee. In Indiana is 
the wonderful Wyandot Cave, and in Tennessee the 
formidable Nicajack; which are worthy rivals of Ken- 
tucky's greatest cavern. 

The main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad 
runs through the region in which Mammoth Cave is 
located. And as we ride swiftly and comfortably along 
we can observe from the cars the more conspicuous re- 
sults of the complex erosive process by which the 
landscape has been wrought into its present features. 

Imagine a vast plain, which in its entirety covers 
quite eight thousand square miles, and that plain, during 
successive ages, slowly and gently uplifted, as a whole, 
by geological agencies. Extensive erosion necessarily 
would ensue. For, previous to this uplifting, this part 
of the continent was submerged; but since the Carbon- 
iferous period the region has been dry land. Unlike 
the areas to the remote West and South, there are here 
no Cretaceous nor Tertiary rocks. The hills are all 
Carboniferous ; though in many places, as in the vicinity 
of Louisville, these eminences have been worn away, and 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. d 

the underlying Devonian and Silurian now form the 
country rock. 

Meanwhile the falling rains have run over the slight- 
ly tilted limestone rocks, wearing their surface into fur- 
rows and undermining the harder ledges. Additional 
to this mechanical agency chemical forces have been at 
work. From the air and the soil the rain-water gathers 
into itself carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) which attacks 
the limestone, dissolves it slowly or rapidly, as the ease 
may be; after which the water runs away with its 
mineral burden. The region once level now becomes 
undulating; the surface waters find, or make, under- 
ground channels, and finally the region is honey-combed 
with caverns. Where less soluble rocks occur, or form 
the surface, the process of erosion is less rapid. Hills 
are thus formed, their very tops refusing to yield to 
solution. The environs become lower, and finally coni- 
cal masses remain, testifying by their geologic structure 
to the processes that have been at work. 

The problem is complicated, so far as the region 
around the Mammoth Cave is concerned, by the fact 
that the compact Chester Sandstone overlies the St. 
Louis Limestone, which is here largely oolitic. The 
sandstone yields slowly to the mechanical action of the 
running water, but resists its chemical action; while 
the limestone yields to both these agencies. It thus 
happens that there are visible thousands of "knobs" 
and myriads of "sink-holes." Knobs are eminences, 
sometimes several hundred feet high, and frequently 
perfect pyramids, left by the erosion of the weaker 
rocks, the original strata being diminished horizontally, 
but undisturbed in position, even to the apex of the 
pyramidal peak. The sink-holes, on the other hand, 



4 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

are usually oval depressions, of every conceivable size 
and of variant depths, without inlet or outlet, except 
through funnels which communicate with subterranean 
passages. These pits were, in former times, and some- 
times still are, natural animal-traps, into which has 
fallen many a wild denizen of the forest. In order to 
save domestic animals from a similar catastrophe 
numerous sink-holes have been artificially plugged, thus 
transforming them into deep pools. So extensive has 
been the undermining by the process now described, 
that one may travel on horseback all day, through cer- 
tain parts of Kentucky, without crossing a single run- 
ning surface stream ; all the rain-water that falls being 
carried down through the sink-holes into caverns below, 
where are the gathering-beds that feed the few large 
open streams of the region, of which the Green River is 
an example. 

It is reported that there are four thousand sink-holes 
and five hundred known caverns in Edmonson County 
alone. The Mammoth Cave Railway, that leads from 
Glasgow Junction directly to the cave, passes a number 
of them. The largest sink-hole known is the Eden 
Valley, along whose margin the road runs. This charm- 
ing valley is adorned by fertile farms, and occasional 
ponds that mirror the passing clouds, and it is flanked 
by the virgin forest; but after all it is a true sink-hole, 
without inlet or outlet. Its area is certainly not less 
than two thousand acres, and this enormous depressiou 
must have been made by the falling in of a series of 
great caverns. 

The reader will not expect us in this Manual, which 
is meant to describe a single famous cavern, to offer a 
catalogue of the other known caverns of the county. 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 5 

Some of these, like the Diamond, the Grand Crystal, 
Proctor's, and the recently opened Colossal Cavern, 
have gained more than a local celebrity. Another large 
cavern, the Salt Cave, belongs to the Mammoth Cave 
estate, and has interest for scientific men on account of 
its prehistoric relics. It is now very difficult of access; 
and being absolutely dry, the explorer needs to carry 
his own water supply. Hence it is rarely visited. 

The "White Cave belongs to the same estate, and is 
well worth visiting. It gets its name from the brilliant 
whiteness of its stalactitic formations. It is really a 
branch of the Mammoth Cave, being connected with it 
by a passage, now occluded, leading to Klett's Dome 
and the Mammoth Dome, of which the former is a por- 
tion, separated therefrom by the thin floor at the end 
of Little Bat Avenue, through which Crevice Pit leads 
— connecting thus the two domes that are practically and 
geologically identical. 

The entrance to the "White Cave is guarded by an 
iron gate, beyond which is an oval chamber, irregular in 
outline, beneath whose low, flat roof we proceed to the 
second chamber. Here is exhibited a splendid piece of 
stalactitic drapery, called the Frozen Cascade. It is 
fretted and folded in a thousand fantastic forms, and 
well deserves its name. The resemblance of this mass 
of onyx to the gigantic columns formed in winter around 
great waterfalls, such as Niagara, is indeed striking. 
The roof is covered with pendants, from the largest 
stalactites down to those as small as a quill ; each one 
of which is hollow, and from whose tips hang tremulous 
drops of water sparkling like diamonds. The floor is 
intersected with shallow, crooked channels, in which 



6 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

run transparent rills. A stately shaft, named Hum- 
boldt 's Column, appears to support the low arch. 

In the third chamber are huge blocks of limestone 
cemented together and encumbering the floor. And 
around all is kindly drawn a wide veil < / the purest ala- 
baster. Attempts have been made to break through 
this mighty curtain, with the hope of finding a passage 
into the Mammoth Cave. With the same wish cer- 
tain deep pits in the vicinity have been thoroughly 
explored, but thus far in vain. 

Some ninety years ago Mr. J. D. Clifford, a Ken- 
tuckian, exhumed from the floor of the White Cave 
certain bones, that, after passing through several hands, 
finally came into the possession of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia. It has been stated 
that among them were the remains of bisons, stags, a 
bear, a megalonyx, and also a human skeleton. This 
remarkable statement is open to serious question, be- 
yond the megalonyx bones; and it is mentioned here 
merely because some degree of paleontologic impor- 
tance has been attached to the story.* 

Dixon's Cave, also belonging to the same estate, is 
supposed to have been, at some remote prehistoric 
time, the original mouth of the Mammoth Cave. 
However this may be, the cave is well worth visiting 
for its own sake. Its mouth is a yawning gulf, some- 
what larger than that by which one enters Mammoth 
Cave. In its present condition it is obstructed by fallen 



*See a reference to the Megalonyx of the White Cave, Kentucky, by Doctor 
Richard Harlan, American Journal of Geology, Vol. i, page 76; and a more full 
account of the same on page 171, by Professor William Cooper, who distin- 
guishes it from the specimen found at Big-Bone I,ick, Kentucky, and in the 
Big-Bone Cave, in White County, Tennessee. See also Transactions of the 
Geological Society of Pennsylvania, August, 1884, pp. 67-70 and pp. 144-146. — 
-H. C. II. 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 7 

forest trees, over or under whose trunks and sprawling 
branches we must climb or creep. We are rewarded 
by finding ourselves in the mightiest subterranean hall 
yet discovered. The cavern is a single immense tem- 
ple with one eternal arch of limestone. By our meas- 
urement it is fifteen hundred feet long, from sixty to 
eighty feet wide, and from eighty to one hundred and 
twenty-five feet high. It gradually curves from south- 
east to due south; and the dimensions are quite 
uniform throughout. The roof is decorated here and 
there by numerous stalactites, none of them very large; 
and other parts of it are blackened by myriads of bats, 
especially in winter, clinging together like swarms of 
bees. Every foot of the floor was searched and over- 
turned long ago by the industrious miners, who carried 
the niter-bearing earth outside to the vats and boiling- 
tubs whose ruins are yet visible. The miners left the 
rocky fragments within the cavern piled in what might 
be described as transverse stony billows, of which we 
counted eighteen; each wave being forty feet through 
at the base, and rising thirty or forty feet above the 
true floor. At the extreme end the mass of earth and 
rock does not seem to have been disturbed. Over this 
we can climb to the very roof, amid whose nooks we 
sought in vain for access to Mammoth Cave. Doubt- 
less by suitable excavation the desired connection might 
be made. Igniting a series of Bengal lights simultane- 
ously, we were able to take in at a glance the dimen- 
sions of this enormous hall of Titanic magnitude. 

Green River is the only openly running stream in 
the immediate region, and its waters are wholly fed 
from subterranean reservoirs. Its bluffs are gashed 
here and there by rifts, or wide arches, from some of 



8 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

which issue streams that serve as modes of exit for 
underground waters. Were it practicable to enter 
them, we might climb through a series of rocky galler- 
ies, till at last we emerged in some one of those oval 
valleys already described as sink-holes. The usual 
mode of entrance to caverns, however, is at some place 
where the roof has broken through, and whose rocky 
fragments, partly filling the subterranean dome, serve 
as convenient stepping-stones down into darkness. 

Such a break is the present entrance to the Mam- 
moth Cave. It is one hundred and eighteen feet below 
the crest of the bluff, one hundred and ninety-four 
feet above the level of Green River, and seven hundred 
and thirty-five feet above the level of the sea. The 
limestone bed measures three hundred and twenty- 
eight feet in thickness, from its upper limit, where it is 
in contact with the sandstone, down to the drainage 
level of the cave, and doubtless extends below many 
feet further. The sandstone, which is Subcarbonifer- 
ous, with occasional layers of conglomerate, rises at the 
surface in irregular elevations. This geological fact 
accounts for the vast area of the cavern, and also for the 
paucity of its stalactitic decoration compared with other 
caverns; as for instance with the adjacent White Cave, 
from above which the sandstone has been entirely strip- 
ped away. 

The British Association for the Advancement of 
Science, and also the Smithsonian Institution of this 
country, took much interest a few years ago in a series 
of observations for determining the mean temperature of 
the crust of the earth. They justly reasoned that by 
ascertaining the temperature of the immense and nearly 
stationary body of air confined in Mammoth Cave 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 9 

they would approximate to the temperature of the 
crust of the earth for the same latitude. Accordingly 
they requested the senior author of this Manual to 
make a series of observations, which he did with the 
utmost care in 1881, not only here but in other caverns, 
using for the purpose verified thermometers furnished 
to him expressly by the Kew and the Winchester Ob- 
servatories. The final result of more than a hundred 
experiments was that the mean temperature of Mam- 
moth Cave, and of other caverns in the same latitude, is 
about fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The extremes of 
external cold or heat may have to be allowed for. Every 
summer visitor notices the strong current of air flpwing 
out from the mouth of Mammoth Cave, and that at 
times amounts to a gale preventing our carrying lighted 
lamps into the entrance. The cool air wells up like an 
invisible fountain, and flows clown like a stream toward 
Green River. Into this aerial stream we step, we wade 
knee-deep, we are finally immersed as we enter the great 
cavern. 

But let us pause for a few moments longer, in order 
to consider the natural history of this vast excavation. 
First or last every intelligent visitor is sure to ask, 
"How did it all come about? What was the process of 
cave-making?" These excusable inquiries might as well 
be met at the outset, although in doing so we shall have 
to anticipate to some degree the phenomena to be brought 
to notice later on. 

As already remarked, the entrance to the cave is at 
a place where the roof has broken through. The term 
"tumble-down" is used regarding such localities inside 
the cavern. There are many of them; particularly at 
the end of Rafinesque Hall, at the end of Gratz Avenue, 



10 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

at Sandstone Dome, in Violet City, and in a short hall 
at the left of the Cataracts. All these tumble-downs are 
where the overlying sandstone strata and the underlying 
strata of thin limestone have been worn away, leaving 
the weakened roof to fall in, carrying along rocky 
fragments, and also a mass of clay and soil, whereby 
the passage-ways are occluded. Besides blocking up the 
galleries where they occur, they also betray the fact that 
the surface can not be far away. 

One of the most curious and instructive of these 
roof-breaks is just to the left of the Cataracts, where 
what is known as the Main Cave abruptly terminates by 
a crushing down of the superincumbent strata singu- 
larly bent and folded in a direction the reverse of the 
main arch. Doctor Call, who first attracted attention to 
this mimic syncline, regards it as due to slight orographic 
movements by which the rocks were cracked and fissured 
till the thin limestone plates were bent by the great 
weight of the sandstone strata overhead. 

Above the Cataracts is a sink now determining the 
flow of the waters that enter from the surface at some 
distance from the crushed limestone reversed arch, or 
synclinal, which are worn away from it to the right, thus 
steadily, though slowly, excavating a tunnel that will 
ultimately become a narrow avenue under the surround- 
ing rocks. 

Pits and domes play their part in cave-making. 
Dawkins and Shaler regard them as tubes cut down by 
whirling water using sand and pebbles as teeth for cut- 
ting through from the highest to the lowest level. We 
are convinced that this theory is untenable. Were it 
correct the pits should be wider at the top than at the 
bottom. But, with rare exceptions, as for instance in the 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 11 

Edna Dome, it is otherwise. As a rule, a small crevice, 
four or five feet wide, expands into a pit that may be 
several hundred feet wide. In cave terms this is a "pit" 
if seen from above, and a "dome" if seen from below. 
In many such shafts there is water ; but it flows along the 
floor or trickles down the sides, with not a sign of its 
having ever been "whirled about with pebbles for 
teeth," as asserted by Shaler. The grooving is invari- 
ably vertical, with no marks of drilling or grinding. 
Doctor Call and I examined many small domes that were 
formed on exactly the same plan as the larger ones ; and 
in every instance their apex was solid, except for a tiny 
crevice through which the water gently flowed. In 
most of them not a pebble or grain of sand was visible. 

We were impressed by the evidences of solution 
greeting us on every hand. Not only amid the pits 
and domes, but in the arid avenues and tortuous chan- 
nels, signs of acpieous erosion abounded. The solvent 
agency of water was evinced by the Pigeon-holes, the 
Mummy's Niche, the Fat Man's Misery, as well as by the 
rounded and worn bosses, and the smoothed walls and 
curves of the spacious halls. 

With such signs in sight the genesis of Mammoth 
Cave is quite simple and easy of explanation. It is with- 
in the St. Louis Limestone and underneath the Chester 
Sandstone; both being members of the Subcarboniferous 
period. Between these formations is often found a 
layer of conglomerate, whence come the silicious pebbles 
often found on the floor of the cavern Here and there, 
as in the bed of Mystic River, appear masses of chert or 
ti intlike rock. The elevation from the low- water level of 
Green River to the sandstone outcrop in the bluff is 
about three hundred and twenty-five feet; from which 



12 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

we infer that the lowest level of the cavern is that 
distance from the superincumbent sandstone. We have 
not found any hall or dome that measured more than 
one hundred and sixty feet, and doubt if any exists as 
high as two hundred feet. The tendency has been to 
exaggerate cave heights as well as cave distances. 

Existing avenues began with small fissures where 
the rock had been fractured, and the gently flowing or 
wildly rushing waters have wrought the narrow or 
broader passage-ways. Everywhere are signs of erosion 
and solution. We doubt if the ancient streams in the 
cavern were ever larger than they are now at high 
water. Some of the so-called sand-beds are in reality 
only the result of disintegration of oolitic limestone. 
On the other hand the true sand when found is as 
sharp as when it fell from the sandstone capping the 
limestone overhead. Trickling and evaporating lime- 
water explains the forming of stalactites and stalagmites ; 
while the crystals of gypsum, calcite, and various salts, 
all tell their story of subterranean chemistry. "In 
brief," as Doctor Call remarks, "the visitor is to look at 
the great work of excavation of the Mammoth Cave as 
solely a problem in solution." The limestone is usually 
soft enough to be scratched by a knife, and in certain 
places it readily disintegrates, its egglike particles being 
separated by the solvent action of the water; and as 
already observed some of the avenues have a floor en- 
tirely made up of fine oolitic sand. 

At the end of Darnall's Way where it opens upon 
the summit of Gorin's Dome, masses of limestone that 
seemed solid and firm yielded like putty under the 
hand, or crumbled at a touch. This was indeed such 
an element of danger that Mr. Ganter had his men go 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 13 

with sledge-hammers and crowbars and break down or 
pry off the jutting edges till rock was reached sufficiently 
solid to support the timbers of the bridge he had them 
build across the chasm. 

It has been customary to explain the great fallen 
masses, like the Standing Rocks, the Giant's Coffin, the 
Whale, and the huge blocks visible in the Corkscrew^, 
and elsewdiere, as caused by earthquakes. Of course it 
is possible, though we find few signs of seismic action 
anywhere. It is more probable that these masses fell 
by their own weight after having been loosened by solu- 
tion along the joints caused by early continental up- 
lifting. 

The subterranean rivers, after all, are the great cave- 
makers. One who sees them at their lowest stage in 
summer and floats over them at his leisure, amusing 
himself by their echoes, can have no idea of their 
tremendous volume and force in winter or early spring. 
There are times when the Dead Sea, Styx, Lake Lethe, 
Echo River and the Roaring River combine into a 
swollen stream fully two miles long, and how much 
further into inaccessible depths nobody knows, and with 
a maximum depth of one hundred feet. Moreover this 
flood has a strong current making navigation dangerous. 
Rising, falling, sweeping under overhanging ledges, these 
waters hollow out long horizontal passage-ways, sw T ay to 
and fro like liquid battering-rams, hammer down weak 
walls, and undermine arches, thus making, during many 
ages, those successive tiers, or galleries, for which the cave 
is noted. Thus the mechanical force and action of run- 
ning w r ater must be reckoned into the account, as well as 
the more silent energy of simple solution. As the process 
goes on, the cave cuts dow 7 n from high levels to lower 



14 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ones, thus leaving the upper galleries dry as tinder, of 
which Gothic Avenue is a conspicuous example. 

On the other hand a filling-up process also goes on. 
Standing water deposits nitrous earth and various 
mineral substances. Water trickling from crevices in 
the roof slowly evaporates, thus creating stalactites and 
stalagmites, by which the passages are finally occluded, 
as is the ease with the avenue beyond Olive's Bower. 
But it will take countless ages to obliterate the immense 
cavity from whose ramifications it is estimated that 
millions of cubic yards of limestone have been removed 
by the chemical and mechanical action of the waters that 
drip, trickle, flow or rush through the multiplied open- 
ings of this subterranean realm which we are about to 
explore. 

Note. — A word further as to air currents, which are some- 
times quite violent. The theory that the air rushes into the 
cave in winter and out in summer must now be modified. Mr. 
A. M. Banta made observations with an anemometer in the 
winter of 1903, and says, "The air currents were surprisingly 
fitful." The air would run in for a few minutes and then flow 
out again. He recorded the inward rates per hour in February 
as varying from 50,556 feet to 77,396 feet. Eigenmann, who 
made observations in November, reports the ingoing rates as 
varying from 7,800 feet per hour to a maximum of 55,830 feet. 
Again he says: " I have been at the entrance to Mammoth Cave 
when the internal and external pressures were so equali ed that 
the anemometer would show ingoing and outgoing currents 
alternating irregularly every few minutes." I find no record of 
the force of outgoing currents in summer. Very decided air cur- 
rents were observed by me in Gorin's Dome and the Mammoth 
Dome, seeming to prove an outside opening. — H. C. H. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT 



AS many as twenty-eight limestone caverns were 
known in Kentucky by the year 1800, beside 
many "rock-houses." Prom these a certain 
Mr. Fowler is said to have obtained "one hundred 
thousand pounds of niter." It is stated, in the early 
accounts of these localities, that solid masses of salt- 
peter were found "weighing from one hundred to 
sixteen hundred pounds." Byrem Lawrence, in his 
Geology of the Western States, published in 1843, 
corrects a popular error by saying of these deposits: 
"False saltpeter is found in many caves, particularly 
in the Mammoth Cave. It is but a nitrate of lime, 
and has to be changed to the nitrate of potash by 
Leaching it through wood ashes." Doctor Samuel 
Brown, of Lexington, made a journey of a thousand 
miles on horseback, in the year 1806, in order to lay 
before the American Philosophical Society at Phila- 
delphia the facts concerning these resources, which, he 
declared, would be especially precious in case of warfare 
with any foreign power. He enters into details as to the 
manufacture of saltpeter, but does not mention Mam- 
moth Cave. The records at Bowling Green designate 
that cave as a corner of a section of land in 1797 ; which 
antedates the statement by Bayard Taylor that it was 
found in 1802, and of Frank Gorin that it was first 
entered by Houchins in 1809. The fact that it was rich 
in nitrous earth led to its purchase by a Mr. McLean, 
in 1811, who bought the cave and two hundred acres of 



16 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

land about its mouth, paying for it the sum of forty 
dollars. McLean soon sold it to Mr. Gatewood, who, in 
turn, sold it to Messrs. Gratz and Wilkins, whose agent, 
Mr. Archibald Miller, made a fortune for them from it 
during the War of 1812. The remains of their saltpeter 
works are still to be seen at certain places within the 
cave. 

Rebecca Gratz, daughter of the senior member of 
this firm, was a beautiful Jewess, and a friend of Wash- 
ington Irving, who related her romantic story to Sir 
Walter Scott in 1817. Shortly afterward "Ivanhoe" 
appeared, in 1819. Scott sent a first copy to Irving, 
asking, "How do you like your 'Rebecca'? Does the 
Rebecca I have pictured [in Ivanhoe] compare well 
with the pattern given by you?" Miss Gratz was born 
in 1781 and died in 1869, at Philadelphia. 

A few words are in place regarding the early crude 
manufacture of one of the essential ingredients of gun- 
powder. The "miners" were mainly negroes, who 
gathered the "peter-dirt," as it was familiarly called, 
using ox-carts for bringing it from the more accessible 
avenues, and carrying it in sacks from remoter rooms. 
The soil was leached in vats within the cave; whence 
the solution was pumped out to open-air boilers. The 
concentrated liquor was next run through hoppers filled 
with wood ashes, boiled a second time, and cooled in 
wooden troughs. Then the crystals of potassium nitrate 
which formed were taken out and packed for transpor- 
tation by the most primitive methods to the seaboard. 
The yield was, on an average, about four pounds of 
the calcium nitrate to the bushel of "peter-dirt," and 
Mr. Miller reported to his employers that, from the 
Mammoth Cave alone, they could "supply the whole 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 17 

population of the globe with saltpeter." Emphasis 
should be laid on the fact, not mentioned in any history 
of the United States, that our War with Great Britain, 
in 1812, would have ended in failure on our side had it 
not been for the resources so abundantly furnished by 
American caverns for the home manufacture of salt- 
peter at a time when by a general embargo we were 
wholly cut off from foreign sources of supply. 

Gratz and Wilkins, in 1816, disposed of the cave, 
together with about sixteen hundred acres of land, to 
Mr. James Moore, a Philadelphia merchant, who was 
ruined, it is averred, by his complications with Burr and 
Blennerhassett. Thereupon the property passed once 
more, for a time, into the hands of Mr. Gatewood, who 
made it a place of exhibition to the public. 

In 1837 the estate was purchased by Mr. Frank 
Gorin, who employed Moore and Miller as his agents, 
and Stephen Bishop and Matt Bransford as guides. 
Then began the era of discoveries. Explorations were 
pushed to such a degree that the wonders of the cave 
attracted attention, not only throughout America, but 
also in Europe. Among the immediate causes for such 
active exploration was the fact that Mr. C. F. Harvey, 
Mr. Gorin 's nephew, was lost in the cave for thirty-nine 
hours. And among the results was the fact that Doctor 
John Croghan, a young physician of Louisville, was 
repeatedly asked, during his travels abroad, about the 
marvels of Mammoth Cave. It mortified him to own 
that he could give no information. Accordingly, on his 
return, he visited the locality, and was so charmed with 
it that he bought it of Mr. Gorin, on October 8, 1839, 
for $10,000, and expended large sums in its develop- 
ment. At his death, in 1845, he devised the estate to 



18 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

his eleven nephews and nieces, the sons and daughters 
of Colonel George Croghan, Mr. William Croghan, and 
General T. S. Jessup ; of these only three now survive. 
At their decease the property, which includes some two 
thousand acres, must be sold, and the proceeds divided 
equally among the heirs of the legatees.* 

Among the agents who have exhibited the cave may 
be mentioned Messrs. Archibald, James and William 
Miller, L. J. Proctor, W. Owsley, D. L. Graves, Francis 
Klett, W. C. Comstock, II. C. Ganter, and L. F. Charlet. 
Of the guides, Stephen Bishop and Matt Bransford merit 
special distinction. Though slaves they became learned 
in their line of research, and won world-wide celebrity 
for scientific knowledge of subterranean matters. Both 
are now dead; as is also Nicholas Bransford, the brother 
of Matt, and William Garvin. The list of recent guides 
includes William Bransford, Edward Bishop, Edward 
Hawkins, Joshua Wilson, Robert Lively, and John 
Nelson. Others, both white men and negroes, are at 
hand for emergencies. None but responsible guides are 
employed, and visitors are required to respect their 
authority. 

A short walk from the railway train brings us to the 
Mammoth Cave Hotel, which is an interesting case of 
evolution from a log cabin. The original cabin still 
stands, just as it did in the days of the saltpeter miners, 
only being now weather-boarded the logs are hidden 
from observation. Other cabins were added, at a later 
day, standing in a long row ; and a central cabin was 
built, with a wide hall between two parlors. In process 
of time all these isolated cabins were joined together as 



*A bill for the expropriation of the estate as a national park was intro- 
duced in U. S. Congress by Hon. R. Y. Thomas, M. C, January 17, 1911. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 19 

one structure, with wide verandas and six hundred 
feet of covered portico. A spacious frame house was 
erected in front, with offices, dining-hall, assembly- 
room, and other conveniences. The tall, white pillars of 
the long colonnade, between which one looks out on a 
grove of oaks and cedars, the ample lawn, the exten- 
sive garden, together with the rustic surroundings, 
make the place a delightful resort for those who do not 
demand too many city privileges in the heart of a prim- 
itive forest. 

The natural beauty of the pathway from the hotel to 
the mouth of the cavern always awakens the interest of 
every nature-loving visitor; whether it be traversed in 
the dewy morning, at sultry noon, or by fascinating 
moonlight. The rough pathway is sufficiently smoothed 
to permit us to notice our surroundings. Tall syca- 
mores, chestnuts, poplars — the tulip tree of the region 
— gnarled and knotted oaks festooned with giant vines, 
clumps of pawpaw, or of spice-wood, with occasional 
groups of the Judas-tree, and an undergrowth of smaller 
bushes, moss-beds and fairy-like ferns, amid which are 
sprinkled myriads of brilliant fungi, conspire to make a 
landscape of singular beauty and botanical richness. 
However gay and merry the party may be, the fresh- 
ness and loveliness of the pathway always excite atten- 
tion and become a subject of conversation. At a point 
about three hundred yards from the hotel the path 
strikes a wagon-road that leads down to Green River 
and the steamboat landing. Paths diverge to the 
Upper and Lower Big Springs, places that have long 
been regarded as exits for the subterranean rivers. But 
when one considers the great volume of water pent up 
within the rocks, and the rapidity with which it often 



20 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

rises and falls, it is evident that, although these deep 
and limpid springs may be connected with Echo River 
and other cave streams, they can not be their main 
outlet. 

Visitors usually defer their ramble to Green River, 
and cross the wagon-road directly to the entrance of 
the cave. In former times a hotel stood near the great 
opening that now confronts us. But the building was 
destroyed by fire many years ago, and only the scarred 
trees near by prove that it ever existed. The opening 
to the subterranean world which we are to visit is on 
our right, as we approach, and its actual dimensions are 
usually underestimated at first sight. But it is indeed 
a noble vestibule, and our impressions of its size undergo 
revision as we descend the stairway of limestone slabs, 
leading beyond the waterfall that leaps down on our 
left from a ledge garlanded with ferns and the greenest 
of liverworts, and conducting us amid the gloomy 
shadows where the daylight slowly dies into utter dark- 
ness. A singular fact about this mysterious cascade is 
that it emerges from a rift in the rocks, gleams for a 
moment in the sunlight as it measures its fall from 
the arch to the floor, and then instantly sinks to begin 
anew its wanderings through realms of eternal night 
in the nether world. 

This is the only entrance to Mammoth Cave; or if 
there are other entrances the fact has never been made 
known. Into this opening, smaller then than now, 
went that legendary bear, with the hunter Ilutchins 
after him, which, by an accident of the chase, gave to 
the world of letters and of science this greatest of 
caverns. Since those days the fallen trees and rocky 
debris have been patiently removed by men skilled in 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 21 

underground toil, and the rougher places with uncertain 
bottom have been smoothed and filled, until the veteran 
Nimrod would not now recognize the place which he 
is said by Mr. Frank Gorin to have been the first of 
all mankind to see and imperfectly explore. 

Certain hours are fixed for entering the Cave, from 
which it is not usual to depart. Four routes are mapped 
out, the uniform charge for each being two dollars. For 
terms for the season, or for large parties, or indeed for 
anything special, application should be made to the 
Mammoth Cave Manager. Cave suits are to let, and 
proper methods of illumination are provided by the 
guides. 

As this Manual is meant for the leisurely perusal 
of the general reader, the revising editor has thought 
it necessary to recast only in part the descriptions 
originally written by the joint authors, at a time when 
the method of exhibiting the Cave was by two principal 
routes and several special routes, instead of by four 
routes as now. 

For convenience, however, the four charts of existing 
routes will be found, together with the revised general 
Map of the Cave and a key to the same, in the introduc- 
tion to this volume. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES 

THE visitor is at the foot of the rude stone stairway 
leading from the rim of the cavern's mouth. 
The patter of the waters falling from the little 
spring as it leaves the mid-arch forty feet ahove him, 
sounding again and again in mimic echoes from the 
walls and roof around, gives him the first inkling of 
underground symphony. Looking hackward he catches 
the last glimpse of the blue sky, forming a transparent 
background for the tall forest trees which seem to nod 
him a farewell. A fleecy cloud or two floats lazily 
across the bright sky; the cheery chirp of a thrush is 
borne to him, wafted on the incoming breeze; the same 
air current shakes to and fro the graceful maiden-hair 
ferns which fringe the opening above and about, or 
makes tremble the green leaves of the trees, made greener 
still by contrast with the dull gray of the limestone 
wall. All these things the visitor will note if he be a 
lover of Nature, and then he turns to obey the summons 
of the guide and faces — darkness ! The rill at which 
he for a moment had looked plunges into the bottom 
darkness, and so will he. It seems to him a fit emblem 
of his own life, from night to night, but a brief day. 

Passing along on the right for a distance of fifty 
yards or more the Iron Gate, rendered necessary to 
prevent the work of vandal hands on the formations of 
the cave, looms dimly before us in the gathering gloom. 
A moment's delay suffices to enter, and we have the 
consciousness of being at last under the earth, shut 
in from the great, beautiful world of light. Occa- 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 23 

sionally there are found timid ones who here turn back, 
who can not remain unmindful of the darkness and its 
thousand uncanny impressions, and so would find 
little real pleasure in the journey now well begun. But 
such persons are few; the majority of visitors appear 
to have little thought of surroundings other than a lively 
sense of something novel, and hasten eagerly forward to 
sound the mysteries which lie in the darkness beyond. 
One's impression of Mammoth Cave, favored by the 
great arched entrance, may here receive violent amend- 
ment, for the walls are close on either hand and the 
roof is so low that one must stoop as he passes along. 
But dangers to head and feet are successfully avoided, 
and now we pass through Hutehins' Narrows. On either 
side the loose rocks have been piled in compact man- 
ner, leaving a narrow passage of but few feet in width. 
These piled rocks bear silent testimony to the toil of 
nearly a century ago, when the miners laid them as the 
visitor sees them, that they might easier carry their 
burdens to the upper world. Under your feet pass the 
pipes, bored with great toil from long stems of trees, 
through which was carried the water of the spring that 
we saw at the entrance, to be used in the leaching vats 
within, as well as to carry it back again when it had 
accomplished its work of solution and was ready for the 
clumsy chemistry of the day at the mouth of the cave. 
To the left, about half way down the Narrows, rest the 
bodies of two of the aboriginal owners of the land, found 
in the soil by the earliest miners and reburied at this 
place. Their tomb is the ancient soil, their monument 
the rude piles of rocks which the visitor passes, usually 
unconscious that here lie these primitive children of the 
New World. 



21 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

As the visitor passes along the Narrows, suddenly 
the walls will begin to recede; his pathway lies down a 
small hill of some ten or twelve feet, and darkness, but 
slightly dispelled by the fitful glare of his lamp, alone 
confronts him. The guide announces that the Rotunda 
has been reached, and the fitness of the name is appar- 
ent. Above him sixty feet is the grand arch which 
forms the roof of this immense hall, broken into folds 
and frets of great beauty along the upper margin. The 
ceiling is one great expanse of whitish limestone, un- 
supported by pillar or column, and is formed by the 
junction of the two large avenues which at last take 
shape as one's eyes become accustomed to the gloom. 
That great avenue to the right is Audubon Avenue, 
and will take us to Olive's Bower, containing some 
of the most beautiful stalactites to be seen in 
the cave. To the left stretches away for miles the 
Main Cave, a wonderful avenue of great height and 
width, full of attractions for the intelligent observer. 

The guides will tell you that the Rotunda is imme- 
diately under the hotel which the visitor left a few 
minutes before. There will be pointed out to you the 
first of the crude leaching vats in which the early miners 
obtained the lime nitrate for use in making saltpeter at 
the mouth of the cave, as has been already explained 
in the historical chapter. Then will come the brilliant 
illumination, and for the first time the grandeur of 
these underground halls is clearly made visible. As 
the Bengal lights burn brightly the great circle of 
the central roof comes into view, and, if in late fall or 
winter, thousands of bats, in the long sleep of winter, 
will be seen pendent from the angles and walls. The 
two erreat avenues leading from the Rotunda become 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 25 

still more marked whenever the bright light of illumi- 
nation only extends the boundary of their eternal night, 
drives it back but a little way farther and adds to our 
conception of its blackness. 

We will now pass down the avenue to our right, 
named for the celebrated ornithologist of Kentucky, 
noting the vertical side walls, free from rock talus, as 
we go. To our left, well down in the middle third of 
the wall, about five hundred feet from the Rotunda, 
will be seen a low arch, forming the beginning of the 
first side avenue. This is the Little Bat Room, named 
for the myriads of bats which in winter may be found 
here. The avenue along which we are passing was 
originally called the Big Bat Room, but Kentucky's 
eccentric naturalist, Professor Rafinesque, named it for 
Audubon, his rival brother student of Nature.* Little 
Bat Avenue leads by a winding way, described in 
another part of this Manual, to Klett's Dome and to 
Crevice Pit. 

Four hundred feet beyond the opening into this 
avenue the roof and Avails make a sweeping turn to the 
right, and leave an apparently immense hall on the 
visitor's left. This hall extends only some three hun- 
dred and fifty feet, ending in a great hill of sandstone 
and limestone debris, sixty or more feet high, which 
completely occludes the avenue. To this room the 
name of Rafinesque Hall is given, while to the hill itself 
the fancy of the guides has affixed the name of Lookout 
Mountain. This is the underside of a "sink-hole," and 
from it the geologically instructed visitor may learn 
valuable lessons. From the irregular opening in the 

♦Now included in Route II. 



26 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

roof of the farthest portion of the hall, water falls, 
keeping the rocks, everywhere cemented with lime car- 
bonate, in perpetual dampness. One entomologically 
inclined may here find rare specimens of blind beetles 
and an occasional "cricket"; but life is not abundant. 

Returning to the great avenue which we just left, 
we find the walls become more vertical still for some 
distance, while the arch overhead seems to widen as 
we advance. Soon, however, the roof approaches the 
floor, the visitor unconsciously traveling upgrade, and 
we are confronted by a wall of rock, around which 
we pass through a narrow defile. Then the mushroom 
beds, described elsewhere by Doctor Hovey,* appear, 
two or three stone walls filled with dirt in an unsuc- 
cessful attempt to force Nature to do something for 
which the natural conditions are unfitted. We look 
upon them as we pass by; perhaps we sigh at the 
cupidity of men who wish to improve upon Nature's 
laws; perhaps we laugh at the defalcation which left 
others with sad reflections on the honesty of their 
fellows. 

Soon after leaving the Mushroom Beds the avenue 
again widens somewhat, though the ceiling is mainly 
low. But in the central portions the ancient waters 
had sculptured out an inverted kettle in the midst of a 
somewhat pronounced hall, and this is the rendezvous 
of myriads of bats. From the name of the genus 
which is so abundantly here represented we have given 
the locality the appellation of Vespertilio Hall. Thou- 
sands of bats, in the winter season, suspended in great 
clumps, may here be seen. A single catch one night 

•A Mushroom Farm in Mammoth Cave. Scientific American, June 11,1881. 



THE ROUTE OP PITS AND DOMES. 27 

gave Doctor Call six hundred and seventy individuals, 
most of which went to the United States National 
Museum. 

At this place and beyond, the great cavern along 
which we have been passing is practically below us, 
and we move along on a floor or filling accomplished 
by ancient streams many centuries ago. We here may 
note the character of the limestone roof which makes 
the top of every hall in all portions of the cave, for 
here we are nearest it. In some places we will find it 
smooth, in others thickly studded with small stalactitic 
concretions of various shapes, mimicking hundreds of 
familiar forms. Now we ascend a small hill, some 
twenty feet in height, and, passing between walls of flat 
rocks cemented with calcium carbonate, suddenly find 
ourselves confronted by the Sentinel, the lone stalactite 
which stands guard over the entrance to Olive's Bower. 

This stalactite is one of the most beautiful in the 
cave. It has joined the stalagmitic mass beneath and 
seems, like another Atlas, to hold the world of rock 
above it in place. The waters which formed it spread 
out on the roof above, and now, surrounding its base, 
are numerous smaller ones, all hollow, from which 
minute drops of water slowly drip, like ornaments of 
brilliant hue, reflecting the rays from the dim oil lamps. 
They tip each tiny, slender tube with bright spots of 
white light, and sparkle like gems in their setting of 
dark gray stone. The stalactite itself is fluted and 
folded in a hundred fantastic ways, getting larger 
below and testifying silently to the long interval of 
time since first it began to form. 

A step beyond and a deep pit arrests farther progress 
for the visitor. But springing from the middle of the 



28 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

roof immediately in front of him is the most perfect 
cone-like stalactite in Mammoth Cave, yellowish white 
in color and flanked by many like it, but of less size. 
In the upper foreground are to be seen hundreds of 
smaller ones, all hollow, some uniting and making 
groups, while others preserve their integrity for a foot 
or more, as slender pipelets of lime carbonate through 
which ceaselessly trickle the tiny drops that take 
materials from the limestone above and add them 
slowly, particle by particle, to their lower extremity. 
On the floor below are building larger and natter 
masses, very slowly, but which will, in centuries to 
come, gradually grow toward the descending ones above 
and finally meet them. 

Cautiously approaching, for the locality is not with- 
out danger, the visitor may look over the rampart of: 
stalagmite and see below him, fifteen or twenty feet, 
a pool of pure water, which reflects from its mirrored 
surface the light of his lamp. This pool never gets 
full ; the drops which supply it never increase either 
in frequency or in size. Its jagged walls are fluted 
and folded in ways indescribable. Beyond are other 
stalactites, forming a gallery, and in the distance, 
among the innumerable crevices, are to be seen still 
others, but beyond examination, for the ceiling reaches 
quite to the floor and the avenue ends. It only remains 
to say that these formations are quite like those of 
White Cave, and are probably connected with it and 
with those of Mammoth Dome, but are inaccessible 
from this locality. Olive's Bower terminates the under- 
ground journey in this direction, and we return to the 
Rotunda, not failing to note new aspects to the walls 




The Arm Chair. 
In Olive's Bower. 



The Bridal Altar. 

The Gallery in Olive's Bower. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 29 

of Audubon Avenue as we pass them in the opposite 
direction. 

We are again in the Main Cave, having reached the 
Rotunda and turned to our right. High overhead 
springs the wonderful arch which here reaches some 
eighty feet breadth, rounding off gradually into the 
almost vertical walls along which we are passing. At 
our left the guide soon calls our attention to the Exit 
of the Corkscrew, that wonderfully intricate passage- 
way which leads to the rivers by another route than 
that which we will take to reach them. Yet, it is often 
the case that parties go this way rather than by the 
Scotchman's Trap and Fat Man's Misery, or if going 
the one way usually return the other. 

This passage is a most peculiar one, and is formed 
by a series of connected interstices between huge blocks 
of limestone that fill a pit of vast dimensions, the 
bottom of which, with its wealth of gigantic blocks 
tumbled in wonderful confusion, constitutes Bandit 
Hall, described elsewhere in this Manual. It is 
a brilliant picture that one may see if he happen 
near the Corkscrew when a large party returns from 
the river route after climbing this devious passage. 
The lights appearing one after the other and forming 
an irregular procession as the carriers wind along the 
precipitous face of the Kentucky Cliffs, in which the 
opening is, afford a weird and beautiful scene. In 
the angle of the cliff and crevice rests one of the old 
water-pipes used by the miners. The guide will inform 
the weary walker that he may descend into the Main 
Cave by its means should he prefer that method to the 
rude stone way. Overhead we note the grayish lime- 



30 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

stone, mottled here and there with fantastic patches 
of oxide of manganese, to which the fancy of visitor 
and guides alike have given more or less appro- 
priate names. If the visitor is not rather imaginative 
he will probably regard some of the names as less 
appropriate. 

At a number of places in this part of the great 
cavern the abundant evidences of water action will 
arrest the visitor's attention. Close to the pathway 
will be seen the Pigeon Boxes, a name given to a num- 
ber of small openings which are formed by the unequal 
solution of the ancient rocks. 

A short distance beyond the Exit of the Corkscrew 
will be noted the flowing outlines of a great circuit of 
the cave, while to the right may be seen the water- 
pipes of the old miners of 1812, standing to-day as 
when left by those busy toilers. The lower pipe brought 
the water from the mouth of the cave ; the upper one 
led it back, forced by primitive pumps, laden with 
lime nitrate in solution. It will be interesting for the 
visitor to note the perfect preservation of these old- 
time waterways, for though they have been in the cave 
for fourscore or more years undisturbed, they still show 
no sign of decay. Try and lift one of those that lie in 
the pathway and you will be astonished at its lightness. 
Perfect in all respects, they remain here faithful moni- 
tors of a patriotism now but a reminiscence. 

Just beyond these pipes will be seen, well preserved 
in the lixiviated dirt, the tracks worn by creaking wagon 
with its load of "peter-dirt," or perchance the foot- 
marks of patient oxen, who here bore their share of the 
toil for the maintenance of our national integrity among 
the peoples of earth. At other places, on the sides, a 



- 

O 



> 



< 




THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 31 

little farther along, will be noted the grooves made by 
immense hubs as they were slowly pulled through the 
old-time mud. Then come the great heaps of lixivi- 
ated dirt, telling us we are near the second of the series 
of leaching vats. But just before this we will have 
passed the Church, the name given to the great hall 
formed by the union of the main cave and Archibald 
Avenue, a broad avenue on the left, occluded at a short 
distance by gigantic rocks and cubic yards of fine yellow 
sand. Tradition has it that originally the name was 
given because here were held religious services for the 
miners, in the olden time. However this may be, occa- 
sionally the over-Sabbath visitors number among them 
a clergyman, and these gentlemen sometimes hold serv- 
ices in this locality. The writer was present on one 
such occasion, when the senior author of this Manual 
conducted such an office. The sounds of sacred song, 
swelled to great volume by the ten thousand echoes and 
reverberations from the cliffs and grottoes surrounding, 
were indescribably sweet, and all tonic errors were 
corrected by the greater symphony of the large reso- 
nator hall. 

And now we pass along the great piles of dirt, and 
when we remember that much of this material was 
brought to this locality in sacks, on the shoulders of 
slaves, from points often two or more miles away, 
obtained after great labor in removing tons of loose 
rocks and gathering the fine silt, a little here and a 
little yonder, we are impressed with the toil which was 
needed to procure materials for leaching. The hillocks 
of leached earth stand, many in number, on our right 
and on our left; we wind among them, we climb over 



32 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

them ; we think, perhaps, of their makers. But our 
mood must suddenly change, for our guides hurry us 
away to the vats themselves. 

In the midst of these piles of dirt are the second 
series of vats, "hoppers" the older writers call them, 
which well deserve careful examination. They are 
from eight to ten feet in width, and perhaps four or 
five feet longer, and four or five feet in depth when 
empty. The rude bottoms are of particular interest, 
since they show the resourceful methods of the early 
miner. Logs, split into halves and from small trees, 
were used ; these were afterward rudely grooved and 
placed in two layers, one resting on wooden supports 
with curved surface down, the second with convex 
surface uppermost and fitting into the grooves of those 
below. The waters after passing through the content 
of fine dirt were gathered by this primitive device and 
made to flow into small pits near the corners of the 
vats, whence they were conducted to a larger reservoir 
to be pumped to the entrance. The leaching accom- 
plished, the exhausted dirt was thrown into the heaps 
you will see around you and another charge placed in 
the "hoppers." 

At this point Ave leave the Main Cave for a short 
time and climb the broad flight of stairs, just beyond 
the vats, into Gothic Avenue.* At the topmost part of 
the cliff which we have scaled is Booth's Amphithe- 
atre ; here, once Edwin Booth, that celebrated actor, 
gave a rendition of one of the dramatic characters 
which have made his name famous, to test the acoustic 
properties of this hall. He stood on the large rocks 

*No\v included in Route II (from page 32 to page 39). 









THE MUMMY. 

The Mammoth Cave Mummy, or what was exhibited as such 
and described on page 33 of this Manual. This unique specimen 
of a naturally dessicated "mummy" reposes now in the United 
States National Museum at Washington, with a perfect history, 
and it was photographed by the late G. Browne Goode for 
the writer. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 33 

above us, on the right, facing in. From this circum- 
stance the place gained its name. 

The avenue into which we will now advance is not 
high, nor is it very broad, except in occasional places. 
The floor is somewhat irregular, while on every hand 
are to be seen the evidences of water acting as the 
agent of solution. The propensity of former tourists 
to make a record of their visitation may be seen in the 
names smoked on every wall, in some few cases scratched 
deeply into the hard limestone. The only thing that most 
of them ever did to hand their names down to other 
times consists in this single act of vandalism. Hundreds 
of such names will greet the visitor as he journeys 
through portions of this avenue. Frecpiently cards are 
left instead. 

Among the numerous grottoes and alcoves worn out 
of the side walls by the ancient waters will be noted 
two or three of particular interest. One of these is 
the Mummy's Niche. This name has some historic 
significance. Away back in the earlier years of the 
cavern's history a mummy was found in Salts Cave, 
on the Mammoth Cave estate. This was made the 
subject of many interesting speculations, most of which 
have little value and less basis of fact, but came to 
assume literary importance. The mummy was brought 
to Mammoth Cave and placed on exhibition in this 
avenue, and in this spot kept for some months. Later 
it found its way to Cincinnati, by way of Lexington; 
thence it was taken to New York and exhibited, and 
finally removed to "Worcester, Massachusetts, where for 
many years it remained. During the World's Fair it 
was on exhibition in the White City, and at its close 
.became the property of the National Museum, and 



34 M AM MOTH CAVE. 

may now be seen in Washington. The mummy never 
properly belonged to Mammoth Cave ; the only human 
remains ever found within its limits were the woman 
and child who lie buried beneath the rocks in Ilutchins' 
Narrows, near the entrance. 

The chief objects of interest in Gothic Avenue are 
the numerous stalactites, which are found, however, 
near its far end. As we advance the character of the 
walls and the ceiling changes, the smooth, white areas 
give way to rougher ones, caused by the innumerable 
smaller stalactitic masses which hang from the roof. 
We will pass many State monuments, and to these we 
will add our quota, mindful only of the fair name of our 
State What boots it if we take from that of a rival 
State and add to our own? Do w T e not know that this 
has been done by others, perhaps from our own ? And 
so we take two, one to repair the damage done, the 
other to add our mite to the growing column! Ken- 
tucky's Monument is the largest of them all, reaching 
to the very roof; yet be it said, Kentucky's people know 
less of their great wonder than many from far beyond 
its limits. But now the monuments are all passed, and 
we reach the first stalactitic-stalagmite of the avenue. 
It is the Post Oak Pillar from some fancied resem- 
blance to an old oak stump deprived of its bark. 
Springing from the roof about its base are hundreds of 
smaller forms, many imitating bunches of grapes, while 
it lias grown downward and long ago joined the mass 
on the floor. Neither it nor many of its fellows are 
now growing ; the avenue is one of the driest in the 
great cave, belongs to the upper levels, and the waters 
which form stalactites, except in a single instance, long 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 35 

since left its locality. The Pillared Castle, the Gothic 
Chapel, the Pillar of Hercules, the largest group of 
stalactites in the cave, Pompey and Cresar, the Wasps' 
Nests, the Elephants' Heads, Wilkin's Arm-Chair, all 
come in rapid succession, and are suggestive of caprice 
unrivaled in naming the several objects. Fancy, 
mythologic lore, caprice, sentiment, history, all have 
contributed to the nomenclature employed, and not 
always with best results. The eternal fitness of things 
has not always been kept steadily in view. 

The Pillar of Hercules is a great matted series of 
stalactites which have grown entirely to the masses of 
stalagmite on the bottom, though the group is by no 
means solid. Aside from its size one could hardly 
imagine what suggested the name. Similar in its 
formation, but yet quite widely distinct in its integral 
members, appears next the Bridal Altar, in which thus 
far twelve weddings have occurred. The writer for- 
bears to tell you the story which the guide will surely 
repeat at this place, for something must be left to the 
faithful pilot who has taken you thus far on your jour- 
ney. Suffice it to say that the altar is made up of three 
separate stalactites, very large above and rather small 
below, which are so placed as to form a triangular 
chamber between them. One of these is the officiating 
clergyman, the others the chief actors in an important 
part of life's drama. 

Having passed the Bridal Altar w r e come to the end 
of the usually traveled route and find ourselves on the 
brow of a steep hill, but looking out into the impene- 
trable darkness beyond. When we become accustomed 
to the gloom the faint illumination of our lamps dis- 
closes a deep pit before us, backed by a great hill of 



36 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

sandstone to which the name of Limitation Hill is 
given. This name was suggested by the fact that the 
great avenue into which we have entered is occluded 
by the mass of sandstone debris which forms the hill, 
a fact to be seen at one or another place in every 
great avenue of the cave. Projecting over the edge of 
the cliff on which we are standing is a long and slender 
rock, the Lover's Leap, though the name is not sug- 
gested by the occasional use of the Bridal Altar, near 
at hand. From the point of this rock the illumination, 
by means of Bengal lights, shows a wild and tumultu- 
ously grouped mass of rocks, and down them leads a 
narrow pathway which parties sometimes take to 
other wonders below. This Hill of Difficulty leads 
to a narrow opening in the face of the cliff, fifty feet 
below us and on the left. 

The opening, which can not be seen from the brow 
of the hill, is high but narrow, and suddenly appears 
before us in the face of the solid rock. This is 
Elbow Crevice, much like the Fat Man's Misery, but 
lofty and the walls wrinkled and folded in many fan- 
tastic ways by the waters which have long since ceased 
to fall here. The narrow pathway in the crevice 
skirts a shallow but ragged pit, the first we have seen 
upon this journey, called Joseph's Pit. Its ragged edge 
so hides the bottom that the passer-by fails to note the 
jagged sides of the pit unless he go close to the margin, 
which is, however, not without some danger. He then 
learns that he is passing over a thin slab of limestone 
which separates him from the space of the pit; but one 
is reassured when lie discovers the bottom at some ten 
feet below. Taking for a short distance the low avenue 
on the right we come to a limpid pool, in the bottom of 




IN GOTHIC AVENUE. 

An Alcove. 
The Elephants' Heads. 




w 

> 

O 3 

44 



THE ROUTE OP PITS AND DOMES. 37 

a shallow basin, and this is the Cooling Tab. The 
yellow sands which make the floor here are suitable 
homes for the larval forms of the blind beetles which 
here abound, and which may be seen scurrying away, 
disturbed by the heat of our lamps. In the waters of 
the Cooling Tub careful search may reveal a few snow- 
white crustaceans crawling over the bottom, but without 
eyes. Back again into the end of the crevice we come 
to the beginning of a larger hall, three quarters of a 
mile in length, where is the first dome we have seen, 
Napoleon's Dome. The huge rock under it and around 
which we pass is Gate wood's Dining Table, and is a 
great block of limestone detached from the very mid- 
dle of the apex above. We are here immediately under 
the Elephants' Heads of Gothic Avenue, and have 
passed under the Bridal Altar. The avenue along 
which we are to go is Gratz Avenue, entirely distinct 
as a geological feature from Gothic Avenue, of which it 
has usually been regarded a continuation. But it is at 
a much lower level and far later geologically than the 
one above us. A short distance beyond we come to 
Lake Purity, a small pool of water which has long been 
known to visitors to the cave by another inappropriate 
name bestowed by Doctor "Ward, one of the first 
explorers of the cavern. So well deserved is the 
modern name that the visitor will certainly walk into it 
unless the guides check him. No breeze ever ruffles its 
mirrored surface, and no drop of water ever falls into it 
from above. It is supplied slowly by an almost imper- 
ceptible stream on one side, and this rarely ever raises 
its level. Twice has the writer walked into it, though 
perfectly familiar with its surroundings. Past the little 
lake is the Cinder Bed, well named indeed, and some- 



38 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

times, like the Arm-Chair of the gallery above, 
connected with the name of his Satanic Majesty and 
then known as the Devil's Ash-Pile. It is a mass of 
small rough limestone concretions or stalagmitic 
masses, cemented together by carbonate of lime. 

For a long distance the avenue winds now to the 
right, now to the left, keeping almost uniform height 
and width, with floor of rough rocks and broken stones, 
until the sound of falling waters reaches our ears. The 
visitor will pause to listen and to look. Whence they 
come he knows not, and this fact makes the sounds 
appear more uncanny still. But after he clambers 
down a small cliff he will wind suddenly to the right, 
and the low entrance to Annette's Dome is before him. 
Entering this dome he will have his first view of the 
work of falling waters. Merrily dashing from a hole in 
the face of the dome twenty or more feet above him 
and falling in a hundred sprays comes Shaler's Brook, 
running swiftly across the floor of the dome. Take up 
some of the pebbles in the bottom of this brook. Those 
soft and snow-white objects that yield to the slightest 
touch are the blind leeches which only have been 
found in this place and in Richardson's Spring. Per- 
chance a half dozen larger and darker objects with 
legs will move hastily after the drop of water which 
circles the stone as you turn it. These are the same 
kind of crustaceans as you saw in the Cooling Tub. 

But look up and around you. The walls are fluted 
and scored as by some gigantic graving tool. Here 
and there the harder layers of limestone jut out as 
sharp and serrated bosses partially obscuring the view 
toward the top. The dome will be seen to widen at 
the bottom and to shade off into a conical top, after 




CECIDOTEA STYGIA (Packard). 

From Annette's Dome. Found only on the under side of 
pebbles. A perfectly transparent crustacean, as white as snow. 



BLIND MOLLUSK. 

Related to the Melampus. a mollusk found in salt-water 
marshes. Found only in Mammoth Cave. Found and described 
by R. E. Call in 1893, and believed to be the only true cave mol- 
lusk known in America. 




Annette Dome. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 39 

the manner of all others in Mammoth Cave. The 
incessant song of the little brook makes a music here 
which is to be heard nowhere else in the cavern. But 
what becomes of it? Wait a little. 

As the visitor turns to go from this dome, at the left 
and low down near the floor, the side wall will be seen 
to have disappeared. On bended knee it is possible to 
pass into a smaller dome, adjoining Annette's, and then 
we hear the silvery splash of the waters in regions yet 
lower down. It is sad to think w r e can not follow the 
little brook and see more of the mysteries of this lower 
world. Out now we go, and as we are about to 
climb again the little cliff down which we descended 
we catch again the sound of falling waters, but this 
time with increased volume. Squeezing into a small 
opening under the little cliff on the right we may throw 
a light down a small crevice and find ourselves hanging 
on two thin sheets of limestone above a large dome, 
the bottom of which is filled with water and the sides 
of which are too remote to be seen. This is Lee's 
Cistern, and receives the waters of Shaler's Brook after 
a wild plunge of nearly seventy feet. The cistern is 
one of a large group of domes and pits whose more 
intimate acquaintance the visitor will make after a 
little, but at another place. 

Leaving the dome and cistern behind us we retrace 
our steps to the Main Cave, by way of Gothic Avenue, 
but will first note the great hill of sandstone debris 
which occludes Gratz Avenue as we look on our right. 
Above it is a dome filled with huge blocks and sand- 
stone debris; it is inaccessible. That hill is a famous 
place on which to collect "cave crickets," and an 
occasional specimen of blind myriapod may be taken. 



40 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

We have now retraced our way, and are again in the 
Main Cave. As we pass along this portion of the great 
avenue we will note the lofty walls and the grotesque 
figures of animals which the deposits of manganese 
oxide on the walls and roof rudely simulate. Some of 
these are fairly imitative of the objects after which 
they are named ; others require rather a vivid imagina- 
tion to see the objects supposed to be indicated. From 
this point on to the place called Ultima Thule there is 
little variety in the walls that bound the avenue, 
but there is a constant succession of instructive local- 
ities and marvelous views which serve well as means of 
learning the real history of the cavern. 

After walking a short distance beyond the entrance 
to the Gothic Avenue we come across the first large 
blocks of limestone which appear in the Main Cave. 
These are the Standing Rocks, so named from the fact 
that in falling they struck on their edge, and remain 
fixed in that position. The older name of the earliest 
explorers is suggestive of their aspect, for to them they 
appeared as a leg-of-mutton sail, and hence arose the 
original name of the Sail-Boat. Later guides and all 
recent visitors know them simply as Standing Eocks, 
and by that name must they now be called. That they 
were detached from the ceiling is certain, though they 
are vastly greater in size than most rocks which are 
found in the avenues and derived from the ceiling. 

An accident discovered the remaining feature of 
interest before we reach the great sarcophagus-like 
rock which is near us on our right. This discovery 
came when two parties, one going out, the other enter- 
ing the cavern, passed in this locality. An illumination 
was in progress near the Saltpeter Vats, when, looking 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 41 

back, a statue was discovered as white and distinct as 
any Lot saw when his wife disobeyed the injunction 
and turned her gaze toward her old home. It is not 
salt which we notice but an illumined face of the cave 
cut off from full view by two interfering walls. The 
old-time style of the colonial dame appears before our 
very eyes, and "Martha Washington's Statue" com- 
mands our admiration from its exceeding fidelity to the 
profile of that distinguished "first lady of the land.'' 
While this object is but an illusion, it nevertheless 
interests us greatly and adds to our enjoyment from its 
very human aspect. 

On the right hand, lying close to the right wall of 
the cave, the visitor will note an immense rock, one of 
the largest single rocks known in the cavern, to which 
the name of Steamboat was formerly given. But this 
old name did not long survive; it was hardly suggestive 
enough of the underground world to suit the fancy of 
the visitor, and then, too, its resemblance to a boat was 
little indeed. But it does closely imitate, on near view 
from the path, an immense sarcophagus, or rather 
perhaps we should say casket, for the burial of the 
dead. But did not the giants of old, that peopled our 
boy's world and all fairyland, dwell in the earth, and 
in caverns bristling with bones of victims and other 
suggestions of horrid underground feasts? What more 
natural than that here should be buried one at least of 
that ancient race of giants, and so tourists have ever 
since told us, and what all the world says is so must be 
so! We will accept the new name, manifestly so great 
an improvement on the older one, and the Giant's 
Coffin this rock shall forever be. But go up close to 
it and carefully note it. You will discover that it is an 



42 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

immense block of limestone, torn from the adjacent 
wall, and falling but a short distance has become lodged 
in its present position. If you measure it a length of 
forty-five feet will result, its width will vary from twelve 
to fifteen, its height will be eighteen feet. Its weight 
is over two thousand tons. We will pass behind it 
later on, as we go to the pits and domes that are yet 
ahead of us, and be able to see this monster rock from 
three sides at least. Had it never fallen, the "Way 
to the Pits and Domes would probably have remained 
unknown, but on breaking away from the wall it dis- 
closed a low arch and narrow crevice through which 
the tourist winds into the devious Labyrinth. Over 
the coffin may be seen the emblem of the ant-eater, 
one of the most perfect of the color imitations in the 
cave. 

Shortly after we pass the Giant's Coffin we find the 
great avenue along which we are journeying turn 
suddenly to the left at a place called the Acute Angle. 
Here one of the very remarkable things of the cave 
appears, and that is the sharp angle made by the 
underground waters in dissolving out this passage-Way. 
The angle made is less than seventy degrees, about 
sixty we should judge, and does not often find an 
imitator even in surface streams. The immense hall, 
seen by illumination in both directions from this place, 
appears to fine advantage, and our impressions of the 
greatness of the cavern grow apace. 

Beyond the angle a short distance there suddenly 
comes into view the first of the two stone cottages 
which were built here a half century or more ago. 
A number of poor souls, suffering under that dread 
malady, consumption, and under the advice of phy- 




The Acute Angle. 



The Standing Rocks. 




The Statue. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 43 

sicians who appear to have had little knowledge of 
the real nature of tuberculosis, thought to find relief and 
possibly complete health in the cave. It was noticed 
that the water-pipes which the old miners had used 
and the timbers of their leaching vats were still in 
absolute preservation; it was reasoned from this 
circumstance, coupled with the fable that organic 
substances left in the cave do not decay, that the 
locality offered especially suitable homes for these 
people. So a number of them came, two dwelling in 
the rude stone houses which we see, the rest in tents 
located a little farther on toward the Star Chamber. 
What hopeful conversations these hard and cold stone 
walls may have listened to we may never know. But 
hope springs eternal in the human breast, and one 
doubts not that it found place here too. What with 
light work and much exercise, with song, conversation, 
hopeful questioning, and eager anticipation, the dark 
days, which knew no sunshine, wore slowly away. 
This dread disease, which may find momentary respite 
in sunshine and genial warmth, had fastened itself on 
these poor innocents, and they daily became weaker. 
For one the end soon came, but at the mouth of the 
cave, whither he had gone when he was certain that 
the end was near. A brief space of time, several 
weeks only intervening, and the last one was laid 
away in the final sleep. The curious visitor may learn 
who they were and when they died from the rude 
stone cairns which are in the old and abandoned grove 
back of the hotel garden. Their bones were removed 
in later years, but the memorial tablets are still there, 
gruesome reminders of the end of the brief life spent 
in the old cabins on which we are looking. Perhaps the 



±4 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

visitor sighs when he hears the sad story, perhaps he 
gives it no further thought. In what mood should we 
take it .' 

And now we come to the crowning glory of this 
route, one made famous by many writers both in prose 
and in song. As we wend our way along the smooth 
and well -traveled path we find ourselves at length at a 
small declivity, while on beyond stretches without end 
the great avenue, sweeping to the right and lost in one 
magnificent archway of absolute blackness. The roof, 
too, seems to have left us, and we gaze upward into 
unfathomed night. The guides announce the "Star 
Chamber," and proceed directly to make more real the 
illusion of the place. All our lamps are either removed 
or extinguished, and for the first time in our lives, 
mayhap, we may really know what blackness is. If 
the party will remain absolutely still, the darkness of 
the place will become oppressive. A little shrinking 
nearer the guide or a trusted friend when once we 
realize how dark the place and how helpless we are! 
But our guides told us to look up when they left us 
alone, and we look. Slowly, as we become accustomed 
to the place, the roof seems to lighten a little, stars 
come out one by one, twinkling merrily here and blink- 
ing at us in evident delight yonder, then a comet shoots 
across the mimic sky, and the glory of the milky way 
brings from our astonished lips expressions of surprise 
and pleasure. The illusion is perfect. The near ceil- 
ing, heavily coated with manganese dioxide, has been 
pierced here and there with fairy snow crystals of 
gypsum, and these have reflected the dim light of the 
lamps of the guides who left us to enter a small 
passage-way on our left, The snow-clouds were made 



THE ROUTE OP PITS AND DOMES 45 

to appear, and night has come to us again. The spell 
is broken ; we are, after all, in a world of illusions. But 
now the footfalls of the guides coining in the distance 
reach our ears, and, with some of them, a bucolic 
concert of familiar sounds, the blending of the barking 
of the house-dog, the crowing of the cock, a feline 
battle, the lowing of cattle, for a little time conspire to 
make us think we are still above ground. But now our 
ventriloquist guide has rejoined us, and we are told that 
the end of the route in this direction is reached. 

We retrace our way to the Giant's Coffin with more 
than our usual thought, perhaps. We are prepared to 
understand Emerson's thoughtful essay on "Illusions," 
written after a personal visit to this cavern, of all the 
glories of which the Star Chamber seems to have im- 
pressed him the most deeply. 

By rearrangement, the region from the Star Chamber 
to the Chief City and beyond it to the newly discovered 
Violet City is grouped as Route III, and contains many 
of the most interesting objects in the cavern. One in 
search of geological information relating to processes of 
eave-making will here find much to gratify and reward 
him which can not be seen elsewhere. 

*The low arch behind the Giant's Coffin, to which 
we give the name of Dante's Gateway, is but slightly 
higher than the bottom of the sarcophagus itself, and 
the visitor will not fail to catch a view of the rear 
surface. From this he will learn the true thickness of 
the rock, which is eighteen feet. The passage-way be- 
tween it and the wall from which it became detached 
is quite narrow; a series of rude steps lead us down 
and into a circular room, the bottom of which is cov- 

*Ncw included in Route I (from page 45 to page 58).— H. C. H. 



46 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ered with fine yellow sand mixed at places with a 
quantity of small pebbles derived from a thin stratum 
of conglomerate which appears between the sandstone 
capping of the region and the Subcarboniferous lime- 
stone in which the cave is situated. This is the Wooden 
Bowl Room, resembling somewhat an inverted wooden 
bowl of old-time pattern. Tradition lias it that a 
wooden aboriginal bowl was once found in this place, 
whence the origin of the name. The writer is, how- 
ever, disposed not to accept this origin of the name 
but to suggest that it came from the resemblance 
referred to. Although this room is small it opens on 
great possibilities in several directions, and should be 
observed with the greatest care. 

To the left you will note a low archway with well- 
trodden pathway; this is the beginning of Ganter 
Avenue, an account of which is given elsewhere in 
this Manual. To your right is a small opening, par- 
tially in the floor of the room and partially in the 
base wall. This is the old "Dog Hole," now called 
the Steeps of Time. Down this we will go with con- 
siderable care by a rude stone stairway, aiding our un- 
certain feet by a firm hand-grasp on the wooden 
railing placed on the right. At all seasons of the year 
the snow-white festoons of Mitcor, a low order of 
fungus, hanging at times in shreds a foot or more in 
length, at others covering the railing and the rocks 
surrounding with dense white patches of cottony fibers, 
give to the place its appearance of age or antiquity. 
The steps are veritably hoary with years! 

Safely down we are in the low and irregular Way to 
Pits and Domes. The entomologist of the party should 




The Star Chamber. 




, s..i». ? | | ^ 5cdJ go /f e6 b |0 , 




Section of Harrison Hail. 
By H. C. Hovey. 




Plan of the Labyrinth. 
By H. C. Hovey. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 47 

here keep wide-open eyes, for this ground is famous for 
collecting. On the old timbers which he will find near 
the Way, under the damp, flat rocks, running along the 
white walls or leaping away from the warmth of his 
lamp will go innumerable crickets and white eyeless 
spiders and thousand-legged worms and brown blind 
beetles. Down a short hill the first water on the 
Route of Pits and Domes is seen in Richardson's Spring, 
a locality of the greatest interest. The work of running 
water will be noticed on every hand. The minute 
stream which slowly fills the little pool called a spring 
has quietly dug for itself a narrow channel, and illus- 
trates the process which on gigantic scale has produced 
the cave itself. The spring contains many small 
crustaceans, and the flat rocks around shelter many 
interesting forms of blind insects. These will be more 
completely listed in another place in this Manual. 

Soon after passing this spring, on the right, will be 
discovered Side-Saddle Pit, so named from its supposed 
resemblance to a saddle. Above it rises Minerva's 
Dome, while into it falls, drop by drop, the waters 
which are enlarging it and making it to rival its near-at- 
hand fellow. This is one of the smallest pits which 
the visitor will see on this route. But its walls 
should be closely examined, and he will discover how 
beautifully fluted and scored they are. At the bottom, 
fifty feet down, are masses of rocks detached from the 
overhanging dome, thirty-five feet above the observer. 
Just beyond the jut will be noticed a low avenue, 
Calypso's Avenue, which leads off to the left. This 
is never visited except by those who are veritable 
cave explorers, for it is dangerous in the extreme. The 
avenue leads to Covered Pit, a short distance away, 



48 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

and beyond to Scylla and Charybdis, o£ which, however, 
more will be said in another place. At one locality, 
about five hundred feet within this avenue, the floor 
suddenly divides into two halves, and the visitor crawls 
along — the ceiling is so low he can not walk — with 
this narrow cleft slowly widening as he advances. Its 
edges get thinner ; passing a lamp between the margins 
we find that we are above a great pit seventy-five feet 
deep, the boundary walls of which we can not see. "We 
discover that our floor, the roof of the pit, is but a thin 
shell of limestone, and, impressed with the discovery, 
we hasten back. But still again the desire to know 
what is on the other side takes possession of us, and 
again we venture. This time slowly w r e move, certain 
of our way, and pass the Covered Pit to find ourselves 
gazing into blackness at the end of a beautifully arched 
avenue in which one may stand upright. "We have 
reached the limit in this direction. The sounds of fall- 
ing waters make music here, and we know that cave- 
making is in actual progress around, above, beneath us. 
By and by we shall reach the bottom of this locality, 
when its true meaning will be disclosed. 

To the group of pits and domes which constitute this 
portion of the cavern the senior author gave, in 
1889, the name of Harrison Hall, after the then 
President of the United States. The relations of these 
intimately connected domes may be gathered from the 
accompanying illustrations showing their ground plan 
and vertical section, correct in the main details. This 
portion of the cavern abounds in these great chambers, 
and, judging from the surface configuration over this 
section of the cave, many more similar domes are in 
juxtaposition and may be connected below. Since the 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 49 

bottom of each is partially filled with debris from the 
walls and roof, it is impossible to make one's way from 
Harrison Hall into the chambers which are connected 
with it; but the waters, which sometimes gather in great 
volume in the bottom of Scylla and Charybdis, testify 
to intimate connection with the rivers and the lowest 
drainage levels of the cave. 

It is but a short distance to the Bottomless Pit from 
the beginning of Calypso's Avenue. But before it is 
reached, the entrance to the Labyrinth, in the very 
floor of the way, will be discerned, and over it a broad 
and low archway, through the sands of which a road 
was cut in 1896. This is Darnall's Way, and leads 
directly to dorm's Dome, from the end of which a 
most magnificent view may be had. When the writer 
re-discovered this passage-way, in 1895, it had remained 
unvisited for many years, and its existence had been 
forgotten by nearly all connected with the cavern. The 
sublime view from the edge of the mighty precipice, both 
to the right and left, should be seen by every visitor. 
Opposite the entrance at the dome end hangs an alabaster 
curtain in many sweeping folds, perpendicular to the 
very bottom, one hundred and nineteen feet below. Small 
streams of water are still engaged in cutting their way 
into the side walls, and the process of enlargement is 
slowly progressing. Since this dome-pit is typical of 
all in Mammoth Cave, and of dome structure in general 
in limestone caverns, it is worthy of more complete 
description. And this we now attempt. 

The walls of this great pit change direction several 
times in their course of sixty feet, sweeping around 
into sigmoid curves in such manner that from no 



50 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

accessible place ran the whole be seen at once. Tlu 
point of vantage is the bottom, reached from the 
farthest side of the pit by a dangerous and irregular 
well-like opening, with almost vertical walls, from 
which springs an occasional boss. Taking advantage 
of these the careful climber, by pressing knees and 
elbows against the sides, may descend a distance of 
some fifty-five feet and find himself on a mud-covered 
shelf, with greater danger still ahead. Carefully work- 
ing one's way down this hill, which can not be seen 
from above, a bed of sand, when there is low water in 
the river which sweeps along its margain, is reached. 
On this was found an old boat, much decayed, indicat- 
ing that this stream, which flows with a current of 
about four miles an hour by measurement with floating 
papers carefully timed, has some connection with the 
Echo River, or may be the real underground river of 
which the Echo is but a sluggishly flowing branch. 
At all events the bottom of Garvin's Pit, on the extreme 
left of the visitor, has a large underground river skirting 
its margins.* But the view upward from this point is 
grand indeed. Vertical walls rising one hundred and 
fifty-nine feet to the very top of the dome, with here 
and there bosses which on careful closer examination 
prove to be masses of coral, and these throw long 
shadows toward the top that move and wave in long 
black lines as the lamps flicker and swing; the drops 
of pure water, that like diamonds hang from the small 
pendent stalactites which in places cover the sides, the 

*The earliest published account of this river was by Dr. Davidson, who 
describes it as "stretching away in midnight blackness a horrid pool of 
water." The boat mentioned above was built for Mr. F. J. Stevenson, of 
London, in 1863, and lowered through the window. On it he floated for seven 
houi s, a perilous voyage never repeated. — II. C. H. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 51 

merry patter of several small cascades which come 
hack to us from the river hall in a thousand small 
echoes, and the stillness otherwise, make the bottom 
of Gorin's Dome of real interest. Then, too, this is prob- 
ably the only dome in the cave that reaches from the 
uppermost level to the level of the rivers. It is, there- 
fore, the only place where the complete vertical range 
of the cave can be determined, an important factor in 
its careful study. The rock is here all oolite, and this 
seems to aid the waters in their work of solution. 
The dome is named from one of the original owners of 
the <-ave, Mr. Frank Gorin; the pit after William Gar- 
vin, the guide, who alone knew of the passage-way to 
the bottom, and who claimed to be its discoverer. 

The width of this place varies from fourteen to 
twenty feet; its extreme length is about fifty-five feet; 
its outline irregularly dumb-bell shaped.* It broadens 
toward the bottom, after the manner of all the pits in 
the cave, and besides the mud and sand brought in 
at flood by the river, the bottom is composed of great 
limestone blocks. The bottom, or shelf part first 
reached, has a great quantity of old timbers, relics of 
former structures that were thrown in here to get rid of 
them. These constitute a famous place for blind beetles 
and myriapods, and we secured large numbers of them. 

Returning to the Way of Pits and Domes, we pass 
along the margin of a narrow and deep crevasse worn 
into the solid rock and connecting, formerly, Gorin's 
Dome with the Bottomless Pit. We will visit this after 
our return from the regions beyond the pit, which is 



*As measured by the aid of a cluster of small balloons, its height was found 
to be 160 feet.— H. C. H. 



52 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

now at hand. A bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, enables 
the visitor to stand over the very middle of this abyss, 
from the bottom of which comes up to him the sound 
of falling water. At most seasons of the year the bot- 
tom of the pit contains only old bridge timbers and 
large masses of rock, with some very smooth banks of 
mud. At others, when the subterranean rivers are at 
flood, the left bottom portion is filled with water. This 
shows some connection with the Eeho or other under- 
ground rivers, and also indicates that the commonly 
seen bottom of the pit is not as low down as Garvin's 
Pit. From the bottom of this pit, for notwithstanding 
its name it has one, the view is rivaled only by that of 
Gorki's Dome. Rising sheer above us to a height of 
one hundred and forty-five feet is Shelby's Dome, the 
top of the Bottomless Pit, named after the first Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky. The bridge overhead is garlanded 
and festooned with pendent masses of snow-white 
Mucoi', while the light of the lamps we leave burning 
on the bridge show us the character of the fluted and 
folded walls, in most places absolutely vertical. We 
think of Stephen Bishop, the colored guide, who first 
crossed this place in 1840, his support being a slender 
cedar sapling, and we wonder not a little at his 
temerity. But that adventurous act not only made pos- 
sible a visit to its bottom but was quickly followed 
by the discovery of the great River Hall, the Echo 
River, and all the other glories which have been so well 
described elsewhere by my fellow-worker. And not 
only this, but the exploitation of the two large pits 
which are connected with the Bottomless Pit, and which 
altogether constitute Harrison Hall, first described, and 
their relations made out by Doctor Hovey, and needing 




The Bottomless Pit. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 53 

change in but few particulars from his original account. 
Do you ask how we reached the bottom? On your 
right hand, immediately after entering River Hall, you 
will note a small opening leading into an avenue which 
is nearly closed by a huge rock. Follow this a few 
hundred yards and you will find it branching. Do not 
take the right-hand branch, for that will lead you along 
a narrow avenue, here widening a little, and there with 
bottom close to top, and end at last in a small stream 
of flowing water that connects directly with the River 
Styx, and this bars further progress. Take the left- 
hand route, climb a low precipice, work your way care- 
fully along, for it is somewhat unsafe, and you will enter 
the pit two thirds of the way down. The shelf on 
which you stand is narrow, muddy, and dangerous. To 
your right will be Charybdis, and beyond it the edge of 
Scylla appears in view. On the left is a difficult and 
muddy hill, down which it is possible to go with care, 
and you will eventually reach, the bottom, if, like a fly, 
you can almost cling to the side. But the rough 
concretions will help, and the old timbers which are 
found here in numbers will assist. The bottom is 
reached at last, and the paradise of the insect hunter is 
attained. The lamps far above appear but as bright 
specks in the eternal gloom. Around you and about 
you are the evidences of fearful ruin, places whence 
the immense blocks of limestone on which you are 
now standing have been detached, while over your 
head, swinging from two small points on the surround- 
ing walls of the pit, is an immense block which seems 
in momentary danger of falling and crushing you. Tt 
will fall some time, will continue its headlong flight 
toward the bottom, but it will only be after years of 



54 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

patient solution yet, when the points will be dissolved 
away and the rock left free to fall. 

After crossing the Bridge of Sighs the visitor will 
note an enlargement of the avenue and numerous large 
blocks of limestone. This is Reveller's Hall, suggestive 
of the dinner parties which were formerly held in this 
place. Since the River Route was discovered this hall 
has been abandoned for lunching purposes. To the 
left, just beyond, is a narrow passage-way leading into 
Fat Man's Misery and to River Hall, discovered by 
Bishop in 1840. But just before the narrow and 
devious Fat Man's Misery is reached, and before the 
Scotchman's Trap is passed, a narrow passage-way on 
the left will lead to the middle of the wall of the 
Bottomless Pit. From this point of view one may 
look down into the pit on the left, and into Charybdis 
on the right, In front, but twenty or more feet above 
him, is a well-rounded arch, which is the termination 
of Calypso's Avenue, along which we pass and over the 
Covered Pit to get our best view of Seylla. 

There are two objects of interest beyond Reveller's 
Hall; these are all in the continuation of the avenue 
that now is called Pensico Avenue, along which we 
came to the pit. The first of these is Resonator Hall, 
where the avenue either crosses another avenue lower 
down or else passes above a dome in the strata below. 
Whatever the real explanation, the production of 
certain tones at this place comes back to us from 
below in volume increased a thousand fold, and 
rolls and reverberates along the secret galleries be- 
neath. Then comes Wild Hall, where the large rocks 
are strewn about in abandoned profusion, and among 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 55 

them we carefully wend our way. Next we come to 
the Grand Crossing, where once two great subterranean 
streams, at slightly different levels, flowed one above 
the other. They dissolved away the partition floor of 
the one which was the roof of the other, and now give 
us unique illustration of the ways underground waters 
will flow. At the end of this avenue is Angelica's 
Bower, and just before we reach it the large dry 
stalactite, the only large one on this route, fancifully 
known as the Pineapple Bush. From the walls and 
sides of the grotto hang numerous small stalactites, 
to which the name of Hanging Grove has been applied. 
As we now return beyond the Bottomless Pit we 
note a narrow passage-way in the floor of the avenue 
and on our left. This leads down a steep hill of sand, 
obtained from the way over its top to Gorin's Dome. 
The walls are smooth in some places and furrowed and 
roughened in others. On them may be found, at all 
seasons of the year, innumerable crickets, and, farther 
along, an occasional myriapod. We are now in the 
Labyrinth. As we wind along, the wall on our left 
recedes, and crossing a rudely constructed bridge we 
stand under a small dome, above a pit now filled with 
fallen debris, but a few feet, five or six only, from the 
great Gorin's Dome. Up a short flight of stairs we 
proceed, dowm another on our right, turn to the left 
under the way we just came, and find ourselves at the 
Window. For many years this was the only way in 
which the tourist might sec the great dome here dis- 
closed to view, and the exhibition is wonderful indeed. 
Directly in front, hanging in fold after fold from the 
roof above as in tiers, is a great curtain of limestone 



56 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

covered with incrustations of alabaster. It is limned 
against the intense blackness beyond, bending suddenly 
on our left and appearing to shade off into deepest 
gloom. The splash of falling waters alone comes to us 
from below, where is the swiftly but silently flowing 
river on whose bosom no man has yet sailed.*" Its 
inky waters can not be seen from this place, but we 
know that it is there. From the farther side drops 
a little waterfall, and this splashes its way down 
the muddy hill at the bottom to join the river below it. 
The Dome appears from this point to be a large horse- 
shoe curve, but it is, in fact, sigmoid in outline and 
rudely dumb-bell shaped. The guides will illumine this 
view from another window still higher up, through 
which, if the visitor has a strong hand and nerve, and 
is a good climber, may be had a glorious view some- 
what higher than any other the cave affords. But 
water everywhere drips in this dome and pit, and the 
attempt to make the climb is not without danger. 

Returning to the narrow passage-way from which 
we diverge to go to the Window, we pass over a bridge 
across a rugged pit, descend a short hill, and wind 
along a devious and intricate series of channels which 
we will call from this on Ilovey's Ramble. This name 
is bestowed in honor of the senior author of this 
.Manual, whose work in American caverns is so well 
and so favorably known. It is a fitting tribute to his 
tireless interest in this great cavern and in testimony 
of the pioneer scientific work which he did that his 
name be affixed to these Daedalian passages. Several 



-Except F. J. Stevenson, in 1863. The dams along Green River havt 
caused the water to back up into these cave streams so as to make it impos- 
sible for any daring adventurer now to revisit "Stevenson's Lost River."— H. 
C. H. 



THE ROUTE OP PITS AND DOMES. 57 

localities interesting to the student of geology are here. 
They are instructive in the highest degree, and must he 
seen if the real work of cave-making is to he under- 
stood. To this point we have seen little of the actual 
work of water; only its results have been noted. Now 
we are to see it at work as a graving tool in one of the 
newest portions of the cave, newest in the geological 
sense. Down a rude stairway we pursue our way, up a 
cliff, alongside a deep pit, over several sinuous lower 
channels, hanging to the sides here and leaping from 
side to side yonder, over narrow chasms, until we hear 
the rush of falling waters and find our pathway occluded 
by a huge mass of stalagmite, while pendent from the 
ceiling are beautiful, sonorous stalactites of purest onyx. 
A narrow pass leads us around and behind this bower, 
and on our left stand revealed the rough and jagged 
walls of Putnam's Cabinet. Here in the pool of water, 
always full, we gather a pocketful of "cave pearls," 
gaze with interest at the waters falling from an 
opening in the roof, above us some thirty feet, and 
note that the dome is made up of a succession of 
layers of flat rocks which have differently resisted 
the action of the solvent waters. Every dome we 
have studied, if we could see its top, would present 
exactly this aspect, and from it we learn that solution 
alone has been the active agent that made the 
cavern. Several smaller domes at this locality present 
substantially the same appearance. They are connected 
by a series of small channels in which running waters 
may always be seen; from the roofs of some and open- 
ings in the sides of others small rills pour forth to add 
their mite, and might, to the work in hand. 

Passing along the rough walk the cave here and 



58 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

there broadens, then narrows, the roof rises away from 
the Moor at times, while at others it approaches quite 
close to it. At every point the fitful light of the visitor's 
lamp brings into relief projections of infinite form and 
makes deeper the dark hollows between the rock 
bosses. The incessant play and change of light and 
shadow afford unwearied interest even where the walls, 
for some distance, otherwise offer little that is attract- 
ive. A half mile or less of this sort of thing and on 
our left, close up to the ceiling, in a widened area, we 
come to the end of the Ramble. This portion of the 
cave is continually wet, and the path sometimes lies 
through small pools. Last comes a great bed of yellow 
sand, in a large round chamber at the end. Did we 
say sand! Take up some of the minute grains in the 
hand and examine them carefully. They are round as 
shot, infinitely smaller, and uniform in size. Break 
oft' a fragment from that overhanging rock. Ah ! We 
have it. This is not sand but oolite. The walls 
around us are oolitic limestone, and the solvent action 
of the waters has separated the. tiny grains, and w r e 
thought them sand. But so thought others before us. 
The peculiar character of this limestone and the facility 
with which water dissolves its cementing material 
makes very treacherous this portion of the cavern. 
Do not trust the bosses on the walls for foot-rests; 
they are as likely to give way beneath your weight as to 
remain. Be attentive to your guide here and you will 
learn much of the processes now employed in making 
this portion of the cave. Here the route must, per- 
force, end, and from this point we retrace our steps to 
the Labyrinth, and through it, the guide, our Daedalus, 
takes us io s,-i Per grounds. 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE 

FROM STAR CHAMBER TO VIOLET CITY 

THE term "Grand Gallery," or "Main Cave," was 
applied by early explorers to the gigantic Broad- 
way of this subterranean metropolis, extending 
from the Rotunda to Ultima Thule. It is impossible to 
reach any avenue, dome, or chamber in the cavern witb- 
out first traversing a portion of this central thoroughfare. 
The Main Cave, with its side-cuts, is three miles long, 
and is worthy of ranking as a route by itself. But it 
suits the convenience of the management to exhibit the 
first half of it in connection with the Pit and Dome 
Route; and accordingly that part of it is described by 
Doctor Call as far as the Star Chamber. What is 
now undertaken is to describe the remainder of the 
Main Cave, from the Star Chamber to the Chief City, 
and beyond it to the terminus, where the massive wall 
forbids further progress.* 

After leaving the hall of constellations and marvelous 
transformation scenes, the gray cavern gallery makes a 
majestic sweep to the right. The black ceiling studded 
with stars changes to a mottled canopy, like a mackerel 
sky. Soon these clouds float away, and the remnants 
of black oxide of manganese coat only the fringes of the 
roof. The floor is encumbered with a myriad flat lime- 
stone slabs, every one of which tests one's equilibrium 
by tilting in a different direction, except where they 
have been adjusted so as to make a safe and conven- 



*This is now made one of the four regular routes, and is known as Route 
III. It includes the new discovery, "Violet City" and its environs, described 
at the end of this chapter. 



60 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ient footpath. No stooping or crawling has to be done, 
and the main floor is everywhere absolutely dry. There 
is no danger, even of missing one's footing, unless one 
chooses to forsake the beaten way and ventures to see- 
saw over the rocking Makes that cover the floor in such 
endless confusion. 

The guides point out many curious objects as we 
walk along. One of these is an enormous rock seventy 
feet long, formerly called the Keel Boat, but more 
recently christened the Whale. It is "very like a 
whale," and rivals in its dimensions the Giant's Coffin. 
A huge plate of standing limestone is labeled the Devil's 
Looking-glass. There are several "side-cuts," passages 
lower than the Main Cave, and that return into it after 
devious windings. These arc never visited now, though 
they were ransacked by the miners for " peter-dirt. " 

Proctor's Arcade and Kinney's Arena are merely 
enlargements of the Main Cave, highly symmetrical 
arched passages, with lofty ceilings, and deserving the 
encomium that they make "'the most magnificent nat- 
ural tunnel in the world." The guides direct our 
attention to stout poles projecting from rifts in the 
roof, and we wonder how they ever got there. They 
also lift slabs along the margin of the cave and exhibit 
ancient fireplaces, with ashes and embers. These 
were described in Lee's "Notes of the Mammoth 
Cave," and also exhibited by old Matt to the writer in 
1881. By whom were those fires kindled, and for what 
purpose ? 

This gallery used to be called the "Salts Boom." 
or the "Snow Boom," for the reason that the heated 
air from the lamps, or even a lusty shout From a guide, 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 61 

brings about our heads a myriad floating, whirling, 
saline Hakes, like a mimic snow-storm. On examina- 
tion we And the seeming snow-flakes to be tiny crystals 
of sodium sulphate, detached from the ceiling by the 
agitation of the air. Even when all the cave is still 
and deserted they silently fall, pushed from the roof 
by the growth of new crystals, and whitening the 
rugged rocks by a perennial precipitation of saline 
snow. This is one of the most curious illusions of the 
cavern. 

The resemblance of the Main Cave to a vast river bed, 
along whose channel, now so dry and dusty, once flowed 
a subterranean Nile, led the excited fancy of the early 
explorers to imagine the tremendous heaps of enormous 
rocks to be the ruins of demolished cities. Hence they 
named them "the First City," "the Second City," then 
came the Cataracts, and beyond them, as we shall pres- 
ently discover, the "Chief City," and other cities, five 
in all. But we do well to observe the indications, in 
passing along, that this really was once a stream-swept 
channel. We find where the channel parted, was 
reunited, and then parted again, thus forming quasi 
islands that now remain as huge pillars from fifty to a 
hundred feet in diameter. The spaces between them 
are usually shallow, but when the arcade is illuminated 
the jutting bosses cast deep shadows, and the effect is 
as if we stood at the intersection of immense cross- 
caverns. The Sigma Bend winds along with serpentine 
course to the large Cross Rooms, where the narrow, 
tortuous bend suddenly expands to a width of one 
hundred and seventy-five feet, which it keeps for tivi 
hundred and fifty feet. Midway is a transept that 
expands the total width to three hundred and fifty feet. 



G2 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

(Lee's measurement, as quoted by Doctor Bird.) Thus 
the S-shaped bend opens into a T-shaped hall. Recent 
authorities call this magnificent room Wright's Rotunda, 
in honor of Doctor C. A. Wright, of Louisville.* Fox 
Avenue opens on the right and leads backward to a 
point where it re-enters the Sigma Bend, thus enclosing 
a large cave-island. On the left the transept branches 
around another island, and opens into what are termed 
the Chimneys, irregular crannies, through which one 
who is not averse to rugged climbing may reach the 
Black Chambers above. The black oxide of manga- 
nese, which we saw in the Star Chamber and Proctor's 
Arcade, instead of simulating the starry sky or the 
floating clouds, here swathes the walls and roof in 
absolute funereal black, while the enormous rocks tum- 
bled about in the wildest disorder make a scene gloomy 
beyond description. 

We now approach the Cataracts, and find ourselves 
on the brink of a steep hollow crossing the cave from 
right to left, partly filled with debris, but with sides 
rugged enough to make a descent into it dangerous. 
On the farther side of this pit stands a solid wall, 
while in the roof, on our right, are ugly holes from 
which streams perpetually fall into the chasm and 
vanish amid the rocks. There is quite a cascade, even 
in a dry season, and after a heavy rainfall the tumul- 
tuous torrent that descends amply justifies the term 
Cataract, and makes itself heard to a great distance. 

By picking our way with care along a narrow path 



*In Mellen's "Book of the T'nited States" (1S37), page ico, what is now 
known as Wright's Rotunda is called the Chief City, and the five great avenues 
leading out from it are minutely described, in the fifth of which was found the 
Fifth City, the same that was named the Temple by Lee. and to which Doctor 
Bird transferred the name of Chief City that it has had ever since. 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 63 

on the left of the Cataract chasm, Doctor Call and 
myself reached what Doctor Bird regards as, properly 
speaking, the "termination of the Grand Gallery," that 
is to say, of the Main Cave; although the term con- 
tinues to be popularly applied to a wide and lofty 
passage on another level, and of which more will be 
said presently. The spot we reached was very interest- 
ing for another reason, namely, because the immense 
weight of rocks and earth overhead had crushed the 
strata into a remarkable syncline exactly the reverse of 
the general arch of the cavern. 

Returning to the Cataract, partly descending into 
the pit, and then climbing over a wall, we find a second 
avenue, near which is the way to the Solitary Cham- 
bers and the Fairy Grotto. The grotto was once one 
of the most beautiful places in the cave, with grotesque 
stalactites and other attractions that have since been 
marred by vandals. This fact and also the difficulty 
of access prevent this locality from now being usually 
exhibited to visitors. 

Accordingly we will resume our journey by leaving 
Cataract Hall through an arch that admits us to a 
grand avenue commonly regarded as a continuation 
of the Main Cave, although really not identical with 
it. The path runs over limestone slabs that tilt 
and clatter under our feet, and between walls of 
monotonous gray, until, just as we begin to grow 
weary of the din and the sameness, the walls sud- 
denly recede and we find ourselves at the portal of 
the largest subterranean temple in the world. This 
immense dome was called the Temple by Mr. Lee; 
but Doctor Bird first gave the name of the Chief City, 



64 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

which had previously been given to what is now known 
as Wright's Rotunda. 

The magnificence of the Chief City is not instantly 
appreciated, the first sensation being simply that of 
surprise at the recession of the walls and the boundless 
darkness before us. But when we climb the ruins of 
the mountain that rises from the floor, and the guide 
burns magnesium or red fire, we stand awe-stricken 
beneath the stupendous dome and vainly search with 
our eyes for the dim and distant boundaries of this 
majestic temple of silence and of night. The exact 
truth is here sufficiently impressive, and exaggeration 
seems an impertinence. The measurement made by 
the writer and Mr. Hains, in 1893, gave as the extreme 
length of the room four hundred and fifty feet, and as 
its average width one hundred and seventy-five feet. A 
simple arithmetical calculation will show the areal 
dimensions to be about one acre and three quarters. 
E. F. Lee, C. E., made it two acres. Doctor Call 
remeasured the room, in 1896, with a steel tape, exer- 
cising great care, and obtained the following results : 
Greatest length, five hundred and forty-one feet; maxi- 
mum diameter, two hundred and eighty-seven feet; 
average diameter, one hundred and ninety feet. This 
would give the areal dimensions as about two and one- 
third acres. A good deal depends on where one begins 
to measure, for it is not quite certain where the spring 
of the arch actually arises. The line also has to be run 
over the irregular rocks, for which a varying allowance 
may be made. Estimates as to the height of the dome 
likewise vary from ninety to one hundred and twenty- 
five feet. But why concern ourselves with cold figures 
in a place that so fires the imagination? The reader 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 65 

who has never been under this overshadowing canopy 
can not realize the vastness of that solid, seamless arch 
of limestone that has stood the wear and shock of 
thousands of years, and that may maintain its symmet- 
rical span until the Day of Doom demolishes it, along 
with 

"The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, and the great globe itself." 

The impressiveness of the Chief City is enhanced by 
utter solitude, as the writer can testify, having been, on 
a certain occasion, accidentally forsaken by comrades 
and guides, and left alone on the subterranean mountain 
at the solemn midnight hour. Sitting solitary, with no 
better light than that given by a single lamp, and even 
extinguishing that faint luminary in order to enjoy the 
luxury of absolute silence and Cimmerian darkness, it 
was strange what a rush of imaginary sounds filled the 
place, and how the fancy peopled the dome with 
uncouth and mysterious shapes. What a relief it was 
to break the spell by the simple method of striking a 
match, and what company was found in the cheerful 
flame of my freshly trimmed lamp ! How welcome, at 
last, the approach of Doctor Call and his party ! 

The dust of untold ages lies on the huge rocks, amid 
which are found half-burnt bits of cane, which the 
guides assure us that the red men used to fill with 
bear's fat and burn in lieu of torches. Fragments of 
woven moccasins, and other remains, prove aboriginal 
visitation. Doctor Bird found these things, in 1837, 
filling the room "in astonishing, unaccountable quan- 
tities." The statement made by the early managers is 
that great bonfires of these combustibles were kindled 
to illuminate the mountain and the dome. But it is an 



66 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

open question as to the motives that led the dusky 
aborigines to frequent this mysterious chamber. Did 
they here hold prehistoric councils? Did they find 
amid this rocky fortress a safe refuge from pursuing 
foes .' Or were these earliest visitors, like the latest, led 
hither by simple curiosity? The first white explorers 
are said to have found aboriginal implements, pottery, 
blankets of woven bark, and other relics not unlike 
those found amid the cliff dwellings of Arizona. But 
who brought them to this subterranean hall, and 
whence came they, and when, and what was their fate, 
are problems for the archaeologist. Pondering these 
mysteries we reluctantly leave the Chief City, with its 
assemblage of nooks and rocks, alcoves and monu- 
mental ruins, all aglow in the light of chemical fires, 
and overarched by that marvelous dome, which, as 
every observant visitor has remarked, seems to follow 
us in retiring, as the sky bends its canopy of blue over 
the moving traveler. 

It is possibly a mile from the Chief City to the 
terminus of the cave in this direction. What meets 
the eye is a repetition of what we have already seen, 
only the rocks are if possible more teetering, and the 
task more wearisome of clambering over the piles of 
loose and irregular slabs of limestone. At intervals we 
are rewarded by spacious domes only less grand than 
that we have just been admiring. St. Catherine City 
is made by the intersection of two avenues. That on 
our right is the Symmes' Pit Branch, and ends in a 
fuunel-shaped pit, called a "well," but dry now. The 
left-hand branch leads to the Blue Spring, and has a 
good path made by the removal of the rocky frag- 
ments. This painstaking work has been ascribed to the 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 67 

Indians, but it was probably done by the old saltpeter 
miners in their search for " peter-dirt. " Neither of 
these branches will repay the ordinary visitor for 
exploration. 

Resuming our way from St. Catherine City, we 
presently come to two very beautiful domes, whose 
floors are covered with fine sand, and whose smooth 
walls arise symmetrically to an oval ceiling. As their 
former names were meaningless and inappropriate, we 
obtained permission to rename them. The first we 
christened Waldach 's Dome, in honor of the late Charles 
Waldach, of Cincinnati, the pioneer in the work of 
subterranean photography, and who, as he told the 
writer, consumed five hundred dollars' worth of mag- 
nesium in taking some fifty views by the old-fashioned 
"wet process." The other dome we named Hains' 
Dome, in honor of our friend, Mr. Ben Hains, of New 
Albany, Indiana, who carried to perfection the task 
Mr. Waldach began under certain disadvantages, and 
whose explorations have also added materially to our 
knowledge of the mazes of Mammoth Cave. 

Beyond these lovely domes we tread an ascending 
path over more tilting slabs, bending our heads low 
to avoid concussion against the roof. We are in the 
Garret, where salts abound like those we found in the 
Snow Room. Crystals hang from the roof and also 
spring from the earth in graceful forms. We pass a pile 
of sandstone rocks and approach a wall of dry, thin 
flakes of limestone from floor to ceiling. By an effort 
we thrust our way a few feet farther and touch what 
seemed to us a solid, impenetrable wall, beyond which 
no man could possibly go. After many futile efforts we 
gave up all hope of further progress, and named the 



68 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

locality "Ultima Thule. " But subsequent exploration 
lnis proved our name for it a misnomer. 

A young German came from Berlin to America, in 
1908, in order to learn our language and to acquaint 
himself with our country. His name was Max Kaemper. 
He visited Mammoth Cave, only intending to stay a few 
days ; but prolonged his sojourn for eight months, dur- 
ing which period he made as complete an exploration of 
the cave as possible, with the expert assistance of 
Edward Bishop, as guide. Certain indications led them 
to suspect that a "tumble-down" in Sandstone Avenue 
might be identical with the pile of sandstone we had 
observed at Ultima Thule. Accordingly they attacked 
a limestone crawl-way near the latter and patiently re- 
moved the blocks of stone, not without some personal 
risk, till they had wormed their way through to an oval 
hall, one hundred and sixty feet long by one hundred 
and twenty feet wide and sixty feet in height. This 
place was afterward named, for its discoverer, Kaemper 
Hall. 

They had been led onward by the music of an 
unseen waterfall, which was found to precipitate itself 
into what they named, for the guide, Bishop's Pit. 
They named another abyss for Mr. Norman A. Parrish, 
the Parrish Pit. There are in all eleven pits. 

A short passage, fifty steps to the right, where is 
now fixed an iron gate, opens into Elizabeth's Dome, a 
symmetrical room seventy-five feet wide and as many 
high, ascending by vaulted arches to a circle at the apex, 
the name being given in honor of a sister of Mr. 
Kaemper. The Grand Portal leading out from it is an 
arch sixty feet wide and fifty feet high, commanding a 
general view of the wonderful region christened "Violet 




The Marble Temple. 



TIJE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 69 

City," in recognition of Mrs. Violet Blair Janin, 
the wife of Judge Albert Covington Janin, and one of 
the principal owners of the Mammoth Cave estate. 
Kaemper said the place reminded him of what the old 
German mythology called the "Walhalla," the abode of 
the demigods. 

Bengal lights were ignited here and there, and an 
automobile searchlight came to the aid of my smaller 
acetylene hand-lamp, thus well illuminating this wonder- 
ful region, which we found to be, by measurement, two 
hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred and 
twenty-five feet wide, a worthy rival of the Chief 
City and Wright's Rotunda as to size, while far ex- 
celling them in beauty. Following a rude pathway on 
our left we reached a sandstone tumble-down that gave 
color to the theory that some locality like "Sandstone 
Avenue" was near. A rich overflow of onyx binds the 
fallen blocks together. 

By permission explosives were used at this point, 
until the indications made the manager feel that the 
process was quite as likely to burst to the surface as 
into Sandstone Avenue, and accordingly he called a halt. 
The result of continued effort would have been desirable 
in either event. In the one case an exit to the surface 
would have made it possible to return to the hotel by 
coach, and in the other a return by the Long Route 
would have been made practicable, without a wearisome 
tramp over paths already traversed. 

Sound-tests by Kaemper and Bishop were agreed 
upon, to ascertain whether Violet City and Sand- 
stone Avenue were neighbors. At a fixed moment, by 
the watch, revolvers were fired; but their reports were 
inaudible. Blows on the walls, however, were faintly 



70 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

heard. Sound might travel far through crevices in the 
rocks ; as was proved by the fact that, while in the Chief 
City, we heard plainly the steam cars of the Mammoth 
Cave Railway. 

Violet City is rich in dripstone. Stalactites and 
stalagmites are seen by the thousand, and of every 
imaginable shape and color. The Chimes are stalactites 
that emit musical sounds, enabling one to play simple 
melodies by percussion. There are masses of fluted 
white onyx decked with brilliant crystals. Grotesque 
objects amuse us; for instance a bit of red onyx called 
the Ripe Tomato, and another formation named the Beer 
Mug because resembling a tankard of foaming ale. Thus 
far these, and other still more rare treasures, have been 
guarded from such vandal hands as have defaced or 
robbed too many curious and beautiful formations else- 
where. 

This new discovery is a cause for congratulation. 
Hitherto Mammoth Cave has been noted for its paucity 
of stalactitic decoration; but the formations in Violet 
City are marvelous, and remind the visitor of the 
splendors of Luray and the Grottoes of Shendun. After 
surfeiting ourselves with this palace of beauty we have 
no short cut provided for us, but are obliged to go back 
as we came in, treading wearily the entire length of the 
Main Cave, yet richly rewarded by our recollections of 
the miracles in stone we have seen. 



THE RIVER ROUTE 

TO THE MAELSTROM AND HOVEY'S CATHEDRAL 

THE River Route has no equal of its kind in the 
known subterranean world. Its features are 
so unlike those of the Main Cave and the region 
of pits and domes as to make it seem an altogether 
different cavern — which indeed it really is. For the 
Mammoth Cave, instead of being one vast excavation, is 
a congeries of caverns, whose walls and floors were 
thinned by the action of water till they were broken 
through into one immense and intricate labyrinth. 

Just as the visitor to Niagara wants to see the 
Canadian as well as the American Falls, to gaze on the 
impetuous rapids above as well as the tremendous 
whirlpool below the cataract, and to crown it all by a 
ride on the Maid of the Mist amid the seething caldron 
and sheets of spray, so the visitor to Niagara's rival, 
the wonderful Mammoth Cave, should take time to 
explore every route that is open for the public, and he 
will be amply repaid by an experience that will enrich 
a lifetime. 

The River Route, now known as Route IV, often 
styled "the Long Route," extends to Hovey's Cathedral 
and the Maelstrom. It is certainly "long" as compared 
with the other routes ; but no one in ordinary vigor 
should forego its remarkable scenes, utterly unlike any- 
thing found elsewhere. There are frequent stops at 
points of special interest, an ample recess for a mid-day 
lunch, and an interval of repose during the boat- 
ride on Echo River. Professor H. A. Newton, 
of Yale University, Doctor A. E. Foote, of Phila- 
delphia, together with the senior author of this 
Manual, made an approximate measurement of the dis- 



72 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

tance from the mouth of the cave to the end of the 
route at Croghan's Hall, and agreed in making it four 
miles and a half, not including the length of Echo 
River, which we had at the time no means of deter- 
mining. In other words, the trip in and out would 
require about nine miles of walking, and the time 
usually allowed for it, including the boat-ride and the 
various stops, is eight or nine hours.* The fact should 
also be remembered that the spirits are sustained by 
the exhilarating cave atmosphere, which is as pure as 
can be found on any ordinary mountain top, as well as 
by the great variety and novelty of the perpetually 
changing subterranean scenery. 

The River Route might be taken by itself apart from 
the other trips below ground; but it is more commonly 
reserved for the second day's excursion, and as a 
delightful sequel to the shorter routes that have already 
been described. We will imagine, therefore, that the 
visitor has explored the Main Cave and Gothic Avenue 
and the region of pits and domes, and has had a good 
night's rest at the hotel, before accompanying us on 
this new quest of adventure. 

Down the valley again we go, led by the guides into 
the mouth of the cavern, under the thick horizontal 
plates of limestone, from whose green, mossy ledge the 
wild pattering rill falls forever with music on the rocks 
below. What becomes of it? No pool or stream is 
visible, but the cascade instantly disappears. An ice- 
house was formerly here, in the days of Doctor Crog- 
han, and the excavation made for that purpose reveals 
the walls of a chasm that extends far below the accu- 



*This does not include a visit to Hovey's Cathedral, for which a longer 
time must be allowed. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 73 

mulation of rocky fragments and indurated clay along 
which our pathway runs. We are really walking near 
the roof of a huge hall, like Dixon's Cave, but that is 
now filled by debris. The true cavern floor is hidden 
from sight by the broken rocks through whose confused 
spaces the cascade finds its mysterious way to the gen- 
eral drainage level and gathering-bed of subterranean 
waters, to which the deepest pits likewise cut their 
way, and which we are now about to approach by a 
more convenient route. 

There are three ways of reaching the region of the 
lakes and rivers. Each has its advantages and its dis- 
comforts. Tourists who go in one way usually come 
out another, for the sake of variety. The first way, 
and the shortest, is through the opening known as the 
Corkscrew, near what are termed the Kentucky Cliffs, 
on our left and beyond the Rotunda. The other two 
ways are reached by going through Dante's Gateway, 
near the Giant's Coffin, and entering the Wooden Bowl 
Room. A passage to the left, from this room, is the 
beginning of Ganter Avenue, which leads beyond the 
rivers. By turning to the right, instead, and crossing 
the Bottomless Pit, we come to the Scotchman's Trap 
and the Fat Man's Misery, by going through which 
we enter River Hall. Each of these three ways will 
receive a more full description, in the order in which 
they have just been named: the Corkscrew, Ganter 
Avenue, and the Fat Man's Misery. 

The Corkscrew is an intricate web of fissures, known 
as long ago as 1837, but not as a passage to River Hall, 
which had not yet been discovered. In one of the 
oldest published descriptions of the Mammoth Cave it 
is stated that "among the Kentucky Cliffs, just under 



74 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the ceiling, is a gap in the wall into which yon can 
scramble and make your way down a chaotic gulf, 
creeping like a rat, under and among loose rocks, to 
the depth of eighty or ninety feet — provided you do 
not break your neck before you get half-way." That 
is a very graphic description of the Corkscrew as it is 
to-day, allowing for the improvements since made by 
removing obstructions and building stairways here and 
there, so that the passage is much more safe and prac- 
ticable than formerly. William Garvin, the guide, was 
the first man to make his way completely through, in 
1871, to Bandit's Hall, and thence to the River Hall. 
Those availing themselves of the Corkscrew have the 
satisfaction of reducing materially the length of the 
River Route, as compared with other approaches. It 
is in itself interesting, as already explained, as giving 
an example of an enormous pit that has somehow been 
filled up with gigantic blocks of limestone. 

Ganter Avenue is the name now given to a com- 
bination of smaller avenues, effected by sixteen months 
of hard labor under the direction of Manager H. C. 
Ganter. It was platted in March, 1891, by H. C. 
Hovey and Ben Ilains. Its total length, as measured 
by them, is eighty-five hundred feet from the AVooden 
Bowl Room to Serpent Hall; while the direct distance 
between those points is only about thirty-two hundred 
feet. Some of the guides first wormed their way 
through in September, 1870, and as they proved it to 
be possible for those caught beyond the rivers in a time 
of flood thus to escape to the surface, I named the new r 
discovery "Welcome Avenue." But by authority of 
the owners I changed the name to its present form, in 
1891, as a recognition of the tireless energy and skillful 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 75 

engineering of Manager Ganter, who thus overcame 
obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable.. The 
avenue as it now exists really cuts through three of 
the five tiers of Mammoth Cave. The passage, for a 
long distance, though forty feet high, was extremely 
crooked and also very narrow at the bottom. The 
latter difficulty was removed by laying a solid stone 
floor midway between the bottom and the top, thus 
making a wider path, though even now it is narrow 
enough to try one's patience. Many roughnesses were 
removed from the walls by judicious pounding and 
blasting; though enough knobs remain to serve as 
specimens of those that were formerly so numerous 
and exasperating. A remarkable stone stairway of one 
hundred steps, called "Rider Haggard's Flight," con- 
nects the three levels of the cavern, as mentioned 
above. There are branches leading from Ganter Ave- 
nue to various domes and pits and lovely crystal cham- 
bers, all inaccessible, however, to the general visitor. 
The main advantage of this avenue is that it enables 
the guides to take parties safely through to the end of 
the cave, at any time of the year, and regardless of 
the stage of water in the lakes and rivers. Otherwise 
we would hardly advise visitors to attempt this passage, 
unless they are resolute pedestrians and are willing to 
endure some degree of fatigue in search of adventure. 

The third way of reaching River Hall, and the one 
usually followed either going in or coming out, is by 
crossing the Bottomless Pit and going through Fat 
Man's Misery. We leave behind us Pensico Avenue 
with its noble archways, Resonator Hall, and other 
attractions generally included in another route. "We 
may, if we have time and inclination, turn aside for a 



76 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

few steps and follow the narrow and winding passage 
to the left that leads back to a ledge near the middle of 
the Bottomless Pit, whence we also catch a glimpse of 
openings into Scylla and Charybdis. This is one of the 
most awe-inspiring spots in the entire cave. 

But our direct path leads us through the tortuous 
channel to which the too appropriate cognomen of the 
Fat Man's Misery has long been given, in spite of every 
protest from those whose preference would be for some 
more poetical appellation. The walls of this serpentine 
channel are about eighteen inches apart, while the 
average space between the sandy floor and the stub- 
born rock overhead is only five feet. The channel 
changes its direction eight times in the two hundred 
and thirty-six feet of its length ; and in the latter part 
of its course the floor comes up and the roof comes 
down to bother tall men as well as fat ones. Yet, after 
all, the difficulties of the passage are usually exagger- 
ated, and it is doubtful if many visitors have ever proved 
too fat or too tall to get safely through by the kindly 
aid of the guides. Allowance must be made for the 
funny stories by which the trip is enlivened. Do not 
fail, amid your jokes and laughter, to notice how beau- 
tifully the rocky sides of the Fat Man's Misery are 
marked with waves and ripples, as if running water had 
suddenly been caught and petrified. At last we will- 
ingly emerge from the too close embrace of the rocky 
walls into a room fitly called "Great Relief," where we 
may straighten our spines and enjoy the luxury of a full 
breath. 

Bacon Chamber, near by, offers a striking example 
of natural mimicry. Masses of limestone hang down 
like rows of hams and shoulders and sides of bacon in 




ON THE RIVER ROUTE. 
Fat Man's Misery. In Cleaveland's Cabinet. 




ON THE RIYER'ROrTK. 
The Bacon Chamber. Victoria's Crown. 

End of River Route. I„ \\hite Cave. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 77 

a packing-house. The Odd Fellows' Links, the Atlantic 
Cable, and other concretions found along the crevices 
in the ceiling of the main avenue are all stalactitic. 
These grotesque shapes lead us to ask if the reader has 
ever noticed the true meaning of that word ' ' grotesque, ' ' 
like what is found in grottoes; just as "picturesque" 
is like what we see in pictures. 

We are now fairly within River Hall,* which really 
extends for miles, if understood to include all the ram- 
ifications of the passage-ways of the subterranean 
waters. Indeed, these come no one knows whence, 
flow no one knows whither, and emerge no one knows 
where. Conjectures have been made, some of them 
plausible, but positive knowledge of the mysterious 
subject is yet to be gained. It is known, in a general 
way, that these are the gathering-beds of thousands of 
sink-holes opening down from the surface ; and that 
they come to the open air again in localities like the 
Upper and Lower Big Springs. But precisely what 
sink-holes and what springs are thus concerned, who 
really knows ? The subterranean currents are capricious 
and contrary, now flowing one way and then another, 
obedient to local changes in hydrostatic level. No one 
who has ever seen them in their glory and their terrible 
flood-force can accept the theory that they find an 
adequate outlet in the springs just named. Those deep, 
bubbling pools, lying along the bank of Green River, 
under cliffs bristling with cedar and pine, are always 
submerged when that river is flooded. At such times, 
likewise, the cave rivers are flooded, forming a vast, 
continuous body fully two miles long, varying from 



*River Hall is now exhibited on Route I, and passed over more rapidly in 
connection with Route IV. 



78 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

thirty to sixty feet in depth, and sometimes even more 
than that. Torrents empty into them through the 
numberless sink-holes. Every cascade in the cavern 
adds its quota to the result. The flood may suddenly 
rise, but it more slowly retires, the subsidence of the 
waters being with a powerful suction causing eddies 
and whirlpools. There must be somewhere a suitable 
exit for this vast and tumultuous body of water. Such 
an outlet is visible five miles below Mammoth Cave, 
only it is on the wrong side of Green River, where a 
torrent bursts from the rocks with force enough to turn 
the wheels of a mill. The problem will probably be 
solved by a more careful exploration of the right side 
of Green River. We may say, in passing, that the 
theory held by Edmund F. Lee, C. E., that the accu- 
mulated waters of Mammoth Cave occupy a lied lower 
than Green River, and ultimately empty into the Ohio 
River, or even into the Atlantic Ocean, is proved to be 
entirely erroneous by means of barometric observations 
that have been made. 

Our pathway skirts the edge of a cliff sixty feet high, 
under which reposes an isolated pool to whose sullen 
water the name of the Dead Sea is given. An iron 
railing guards the way for about a hundred feet, when 
we descend a flight of steps to a lower terrace. If we 
venture down to the margin and taste the water of the 
pool we shall find it sweet, instead of bitter like that of 
its Oriental namesake. Turning a few steps to the 
right we find a cascade which has been regarded as a 
reappearance of the waterfall at the mouth of the cave, 
although of this there is hardly sufficient proof. The 
cascade precipitates itself into a funnel-shaped hollow 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 79 

of silt, and vanishes under a massive mud-covered lime- 
stone ledge. 

In this vicinity the writer found, in 1881, a natural 
mushroom bed, that suggested the idea of a mushroom 
farm here, similar to those in France, whence thou- 
sands of bushels are annually marketed. My suggestion 
met with favor, and extensive beds were laid out in 
Audubon Avenue, on which many thousands of dollars 
were spent ; but with meagre results for lack of suitable 
irrigation. There is no reason why the plan should not 
work well by proper methods. 

The topic of eyeless fish and other aquatic inhabi- 
tants of the cave streams would naturally be treated 
here; but the reader is referred to the special chapters 
on cavern fauna for the desired information. 

"While speculating as to cascades, mushrooms, and 
blind fish we were startled on the occasion of our first 
visit by hilarious sounds that heralded the approach of 
another party. There never was a prettier sight than 
this merry company when they finally emerged from 
the darkness, sixty in all, with flashing lamps and 
spangled costumes. They wound past us along the 
sombre terrace, astonishing the gnomes by their jolly 
shouts and jovial songs. On they went, single file, 
behind a wall of stone, to come into view again on a 
natural bridge over the River Styx. The details of the 
wild scene were brought to light as they swung their 
lamps in order to catch sight of the mysterious banks 
on which we stood below them. The estimated length 
of the River Styx, whose black waters wind their way 
between the steep walls and underneath the bridge, is 
about four hundred feet, and its breadth is not far from 
forty feet. Formerly it had to be crossed by boats, but 



80 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

now it is done by the natural bridge just mentioned. 
The spot was dangerous before a guard-rail was erected. 
Among the thrilling stories told of cave adventures is 
that told by "William, the guide, of Professor Silliman's 
slipping from the bridge. The savant would have 
fallen into the Styx had not the brave guide sprung to 
the rescue. 

On descending from the bridge we enter a lofty and 
spacious hall, where we find the placid waters of Lake 
Lethe, a body about as large as the Styx, and which 
was also formerly crossed by a boat. It is now partly 
filled with debris, allowing the construction of a narrow 
path along its margin to the pontoon that bridges its 
neck. 

From this we step upon a beach of the finest yellow 
sand. This is the Great Walk to the Echo River, a 
distance of some four hundred yards. The ceiling here 
is not far from ninety feet high, and is most beautifully 
mottled with black and white limestones, like snow- 
clouds in a wintry sky. By igniting magnesium we get 
the wonderful effect in its splendor. Thus we also 
descry the marvelous masque of Shakespeare overhead. 
The actual likeness to the renowned Bard of Avon is 
striking. The Great Walk is only five feet above low 
water mark, and is submerged during the rainy season. 
Usually it is in good order during the months when 
tourists are most apt to visit the cave. As we walk 
along it let us keep a sharp watch for the Cambarus 
pellucidus, the blind and white crawfish for which 
the cave is noted. The earliest mention of it is the 
following : 

"The river is a stream of water twenty feet wide 
and they say as many deep. It was discovered only 




Pi 



Pi 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 81 

about a year ago. Its current is very sluggish, as has 
been proved by launching a piece of wood bearing a 
lighted candle on its bosom. We were informed that 
a species of white fish were found here without eyes, 
and the keeper of the hotel assured us that he himself 
had seen them, but that their other senses were so 
acute the slightest touch of water overhead was 1 suf- 
ficient to alarm them and make them dart off like 
lightning." Davidson describes the canoe in which 
visitors would row a short distance till stopped by a 
rocky barrier. Two of his acquaintances resolved fco 
pass this barrier. "Accordingly, lifting the skiff over 
the rock, they launched it on the other side, and rowed, 
as they thought, for two miles. They beheld a great 
many new scenes and chambers never explored before. 
They also saw some of the white fish. As for us, on 
our visit, we were not favored with a sight of these 
natural curiosities." (Extract from a Report read 
before the Society of Adelphi of Transylvania Univer- 
sity, January 16, 1840, by Reverend R. Davidson.) 
This was two years previous to Dekay's description, 
in 1812, and which is credited by Agassiz with being 
the first scientific mention of these interesting fish. 

The first persons who ever crossed these waters 
were Stephen Bishop, the guide, accompanied by Pro- 
fessor Brice Patton, a teacher in the Louisville Asylum 
for the Blind, and Mr. John Craig, of Philadelphia. 
Those who now cross so gayly and with such manifest 
delight can hardly realize the degree of courage 
demanded for that first voyage of discovery across 
these subterranean waters. Mention of the Asylum 
for the Blind reminds us that at various times a 
number of blind people have visited Mammoth Cave. 



82 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Matt piloted a party of them through in 1880 ; and it 
was remarkable to hear them speak without any sense 
of incongruity of what they had seen, and about which 
they were as enthusiastic as any others. 

A fleet of flat-boats awaits us on Echo River, or on 
Lake Lethe in case of high water backing in from Green 
River. These boats are built of planks and timbers 
brought in by way of the Crevice Pit and Mammoth 
Dome; though formerly every piece had to come in by 
the Fat Man's Misery. "When not in use the fleet is 
moored by chains, though grapevines were used at the 
time of our first visit. Ropes are not strong enough to 
hold the boats in time of flood. 

Each boat has seats on the gunwales for twenty 
passengers, who set their lamps down in a row in the 
middle of the craft. The guide stands in the bow and 
propels the boat by a long paddle, or by grasping rocks 
projecting from the ceiling. Usually but a slight cur- 
rent is to be noticed. Hence the singular inaccuracy 
of an imaginative picture by a French artist that has 
been extensively copied, representing the river as bois- 
terous, and frantic oarsmen striving with might and 
main to keep the boat from shipwreck on the rocks. 
And as the only gale here is that which blows out from 
the mouth of the cave, there is equal absurdity in a 
striking picture that shows sail-boats on this calm and 
unruffled tide. 

There are four arches, through either of which we 
may launch on Echo River. The first arch is only 
about three feet above low water, and if the river has 
risen a little, it is necessary to go on to the second, 
third, or fourth arch. In doing this we cross the 
Sandy Desert and flounder through a muddy place 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 83 

named Purgatory. As has already been stated, there 
is a current of varying strength when the river rises 
above low water mark. The last time we were there 
the guide made no use of his paddle, relying on the cur- 
rent and his pointed staff to take us through. Once 
a party of journalists swamped their boat, but were 
rescued by the courage and presence of mind of both 
themselves and Nelson, their guide. Such mishaps are 
rare. 

The voyage is usually replete with pleasure and with 
none but agreeable adventures. The archway over- 
head varies from five to thirty feet, while the plummet 
shows about an equal variation in the depth of the 
water over whose bosom we float. According to the 
barometer the surface is about twenty feet above the 
level of Green River, though observations differ, some 
making it more and others less than we have stated. 
The width of Echo River varies from twenty to two 
hundred feet, and its length is probably about half 
a mile. The stream can not properly be said to have 
any shore, as, except at the landing places, the rocks 
come abruptly down to the water. Along the margin 
are a myriad cavities, from a few inches to many 
feet in diameter, that have been washed out by the 
stream. These cavelets gave a wag who was in our 
party the first time we crossed the stream his coveted 
opportunity for a joke. "Oh, see these little bits of 
caves — three for five cents," were his silly words. The 
solemn echoes caught them up and bore them, as if in 
derision, hither and thither and far away, till he was 
ashamed of himself. When the peals of laughter that 
followed had also died away, a quiet lady in black velvet 
cave costume, with tiny sleigh-bells along the edge to 



84 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

help people to find her in case she got lost, sang the 
"Sweet Bye and Bye," and the echoes were singularly 
sweet and pleasing. Then some one fired off a revolver, 
and the report rebounded tremendously from rock to 
rock. A native Kentuckian favored us with the famous 
"Rebel Yell," which was re-echoed as if a regiment 
was rallied from the recesses of the cavern. Flute 
music awoke delicious reverberations, and the cornet 
brought out corresponding effects. The tones of a fail 
chore! struck in quick succession brought back a sweep- 
ing arpeggio. 

It shoulel be explained that this symmetrical pas- 
sage-way does not give back a distinct echo, as the 
term is commonly used; but gives a melodious pro- 
longation of sound for from ten to thirty minutes after 
the original impulse. The tunnel has a certain key- 
note of its own, which, when firmly struck, excites 
harmonics with tones of incredible depth and sweet- 
ness, the lowest of them reminding one of the profound 
undertone heard in the tremendous music of Niagara. 

The most extraordinary effects are produced when 
Echo River is allowed to speak for itself, and can only 
be hael when the party is willing to maintain utter 
silence. The method is simply by the guide's agitating 
the water by rocking the boat and striking the water 
vigorously with his paddle. The first sound to break 
the intense stillness is like the tinkling of myriads of 
tiny silver bells. Then larger and heavier bells take 
up the harmony as the waves seek out the cavities in 
the rocky wall. Then it is as if all chimes of all 
cathedrals hael conspired to raise a tempest of sweet 
sounds. These die away to a whisper, followed by 
mutterings and a noise as if of an angry multitude, 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 85 

mingled with unearthly shrieks. Alarmed, we are ready 
to go to the rescue; but the guide motions to us to 
keep quiet and await what is to follow. We sit in 
expectation. Lo, as if from some deep recess that 
had hitherto been forgotten, comes a tone tender and 
profound; after which, like gentle memories, are 
reawakened all the mellow sounds, the silver bells, the 
alarm bells, the chiming cathedral bells, till River Hall 
rings again with the wondrous, matchless harmony. 

As we land at Rocky Inlet the melody of a cascade 
greets us, whose falling water breaks into liquid pearls 
on the ledges. This is Cascade Hall. An opening on 
our right leads to Roaring River, a succession of shallow 
ripples and deep basins, navigable only by a canoe that 
can be carried over the portages. It has a remarkable 
echo, and offers points of interest to the scientist, but is 
never visited by ordinary tourists.* 

Silliman's Avenue contains numerous places worthy 
of note. We first come to singular shelf-like projec- 
tions called Wellington's Galleries. Then, at the Drip- 
ping Spring, we find the only stalactites seen since 
entering River Hall. The paucity of these natural 
ornamentations is explained elsewhere in this Manual. 
The guides, with slight regard for reverence, have 
named the next localities, in succession, the Infernal 
Regions, Pluto's Dome, and Old Scratch Hall. We 
leave them to justify their choice of names as best they 
may, and the tourist who disputes them will find that 
they are equal to the occasion. For instance, the ceil- 
ing in Old Scratch Hall is marked all over in a most 
extraordinary manner, which the guides assure us was 
done as a deed of darkness by the Evil One, although it 

*Here now ends Route I, the rest of this chapter belonging to Route IV. 



86 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

looks very much as if they had done it themselves with 
the tips of their spiked staffs. But the trails of the 
serpents in Serpent Hall are plainly freaks of nature, 
and are very singular. There are many of these wind- 
ing grooves in the ceiling. 

Here is the high water mark of Echo River in time 
of flood. And here, also, is the inner termination of 
Ganter Avenue, which runs from this place to the 
Wooden Bowl Room, near the Giant's Coffin, and 
affords an exit for any unlucky tourist who may be 
caught beyond the rivers during a sudden rise of their 
waters — a thing, by the way, that seldom happens. 
The Valley Way Side-cut is mainly interesting for its 
profusion of gypsum crystals that grow in the niches 
along the walls, and are dug from the ground like 
potatoes. 

After descending the Hill of Fatigue we come to the 
facsimile of an enormous ocean steamer with her rud- 
der hard aport; and as the unique resemblance was 
first noticed at the time of the launching of the pon- 
derous Great Eastern, this was fitly christened the 
Great Western. Beyond it is the Valley of Flowers; 
and then Silliman's Avenue, which we have been trav- 
ersing, ends in Ole Bull's Concert Hall, where the 
renowned Norwegian violinist once gave a musical 
entertainment. Just before reaching this hall, how- 
ever, we notice on our left the entrance to Rhoda's 
Arcade, not included in the regular route. It leads by 
a winding and picturesque path, about five hundred 
yards in length, easily followed, to one of the most 
symmetrical domes in Mammoth Cave. The arcade is 
about ten feet high, and in many places the walls are 
incrusted with fine crystals of gypsum. Lucy's Dome, 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 87 

thus reached, is about sixty feet in diameter and per- 
haps a hundred feet high, although enthusiastic admirers 
have credited it with thrice that altitude. The sides 
are composed of immense curtains reaching from the 
floor to the dim vault above. A twin-dome near by is 
connected with it by a tall archway. During our visit 
in 1896 we had the guides burn red fire in this window, 
thus illuminating both domes. The entire group is 
known as the Jessup Domes. 

El Ghor is a wild, rugged pass, on a lower level 
than Silliman's Avenue. It meanders through the lime- 
stone like the dry bed of an ancient river. Overhead 
are the Hanging Rocks that never fall, though forever 
threatening to do so. In Fly Chamber, on the walls 
and rocks, are myriads of tiny crystals of black gypsum, 
each about the size of a house-fly. The Sheep-shelter 
is a rock jutting from the left wall for ten feet, and 
expanding for twenty feet in length. Victoria's Crown, 
sixteen feet in diameter, is on our right. Boone Avenue 
leads off to the left. Corinna's Dome is directly over 
El Ghor. The Black Hole of Calcutta is an ugly pit 
twenty feet deep. Stella's Dome, which resembles 
Lucy's Dome, is reached by an avenue to the left. 
The guides also point out the Mule-stall, the Anvil, the 
Chimes, and other grotesque objects. Hebe's Spring, 
four feet wide and a foot or more deep, is said to be 
supplied with pure water at the top and sulphur water 
below. Boone Avenue, on our left, was for years blocked 
by a stone stairway now removed. We shall presently 
describe discoveries made in 1907 in this direction. But 
now, through an uninviting hole, we climb to Mary's 
Vineyard. A stalactite winds from ceiling to floor, and is 
called the Grapevine. Around it are countless nodules 



03 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

of calcium carbonate coated with black oxide of iron, 
which simulate clusters on clusters of luscious grapes, 
gleaming with varied tints through the dripping dew. 
No covetous hand is permitted to pluck this subterranean 
vintage. By a detour through Elindo Avenue one may 
reach a natural chapel named by a priest the Holy 
Sepulchre. The walls are dark and bare, but in the 
vicinity are some fine stalactites. We are in an upper 
tier of caverns. 

Washington Hall is a locality toward which we have 
for some time cast our longing eyes, not on account of 
its beauty, but because it is the usual dining-place for 
parties taking the Long Route. It is somewhat circu- 
lar in shape and one hundred feet in longest diameter. 
Its walls are smoke-stained, and the floor is strewn 
with the relics of hundreds of dining-parties, while 
along its margin is a rampart of broken bottles left 
there by prohibitionists and others, once filled with 
milk, cold coffee, or other beverages. 

With appetites whetted by vigorous exercise and 
the bracing cave-air we fall to in primitive style and 
partake of the repast provided for us, forgetful of the 
fact that we are far below the brave sunshine and the 
verdant forests, and only mindful that we are hungry 
mortals. While we dine the guides trim our lamps and 
replenish them from cans of oil that are kept near by 
for the purpose. 

Snowball Room comes next beyond Washington 
Hall. Its ceiling is thickly dotted with hemispherical 
masses of snowy gypsum, each being from two to ten 
inches in diameter. The effect is as if a crowd of merry 
school-boys had flung a thousand snowballs against the 
wall, which stuck there as mementos of their sport. 



p— — ^»n— f . t ipn im 







2 to 

M a) 



w 



w 
o 



a 

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THE RIVER ROUTE. 89 

A charming side-trip occasionally taken is down 
Marion Avenue for a mile or more, over a clean, sandy 
floor, and under a cloudy ceiling. It has two branches : 
one to the left, leading to Zoe's Grotto, and the other 
to the right, through Paradise, with its fair and crystal- 
line flowers, to Portia's Parterre. Digby's Dome has 
no special attractions, but is geologically interesting 
because it cuts through to the upper sandstone. 

Cleaveland's Cabinet, which we next enter, is a long 
and singularly magnificent avenue, named for the late 
Professor Cleaveland, of Bowdoin College, the famous 
mineralogist. This treasure-house of alabaster brilliants 
was discovered by Stephen Bishop, accompanied by 
Messrs. Patten and Craig. It was first described by 
Professor John Locke, M. D., of Cincinnati, in a com- 
munication to the American Journal of Science and Art, 
in 1841, from data furnished him by Mrs. Anderson, a 
daughter of Mr. Nicholas Longworth. Doctor Locke 
was delighted with the gypsum rosettes exhibited for 
his inspection, some of which, he says, were a foot in 
diameter, whose acanthus-like leaves roll elegantly out- 
ward from a central disk ; and he gave them the name 
of "oulopholites," or curled-leaf -stones. 

We wander bewildered under symmetrical arches of 
fifty feet span, where the fancy is charmed by the 
natural mimicry of every flower that grows in garden, 
forest, or prairie, from the nodding pansy to the flaunt- 
ing helianthus. Various names are given to the differ- 
ent portions of the general avenue, such as Flora's 
Garden, Mary's Bower, Floral Cross, Last Rose of 
Summer, Vale of Diamonds, Marble Hall, Diamond 
Grotto, Gem Hall, and Charlotte's Grotto. From any 
one of these take a single cave flower and examine its 



90 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

queenly petals, and it will give a good idea of all the 
rest. Each rosette is made up of countless fibrous 
crystals; each tiny crystal is in itself a study; each 
fascicle of curved prisms is wonderful, and the who!" 
glorious blossom is a miracle of beauty. Now multiply 
this mimic blossom from one to a myriad as you move 
down the dazzling vista as if in a dream of Elysium, not 
for a few yards but for two magnificent miles, including 
all the crystalline region of which Cleaveland's Cabinet 
is only a portion. Indeed, these necessary names come 
to seem intrusive and trivial. 

All is virgin white, except here and there a patch of 
gray limestone, or a spot bronzed by metallic stain, 
or as we purposely vary the lovely monotony by burn- 
ing chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping 
done by nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross 
made by a mass of stone rosettes; while lioral coro- 
nets, clusters, wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly 
every foot of the ceiling and walls. The overgrown 
ornaments actually crowd each other till they fall on 
the floor and make the pathway sparkle with crushed 
and trodden jewels. It has been impossible to guard 
all these exquisite formations from covetous fingers, 
and too many have been smoked by lamps in careless 
hands. Yet, happily, the subtle forces of nature are 
at work to mend what man has marred, and to replace 
by fresh creations what has gone to the mineralogist's 
cabinet or the amateur's Hagtrc. 

In secluded chambers, seldom exhibited to the 
ordinary troops that throng these avenues, may still be 
seen the trailing vines, branching antlers, stalks of 
celery, and pendulous fringes like the night-blooming 
cereus, that were so vividly described by Bayard 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 91 

Taylor and other early visitors. These are especially 
conspicuous in Charlotte's Grotto (named for the wife 
of Stephen, the guide), and which is near the terminus 
of Cleaveland's Cabinet. Here are snowy plumes float- 
ing from rifts and crevices. And here and everywhere 
in this matchless fairyland are visible clumps of lilies, 
daisies, blanched tulips, drooping fuchsias, spikes of 
tuberoses, glorious chrysanthemums, wax-leaved mag- 
nolias — but why exhaust the botanical catalogue? 
The excited fancy readily finds every gem of the green- 
house and parterre in this crystalline conservatory. 

Suddenly, by a startling change, our path climbs up 
from these lovely regions, ascending a miniature edi- 
tion of the Rocky Mountains. From the summit of 
this vast pile of rocks the visitor beholds a lofty hall, 
which it gives the senior author of this Manual pleasure 
to name Call's Rotunda, in recognition of the enthusi- 
astic and intelligent researches made by the junior 
author, R. Ellsworth Call, Ph. D., who is so rapidly 
making a reputation for himself among speleologists. 
It is only rivaled in size by the Chief City, described 
on the Main Cave Route. The transverse diameter of 
Call's Rotunda is nearly double its largest component, 
which is the great avenue leading to the visitor's right 
hand. This avenue leads us for about three hundred 
yards to a great mass of sandstone debris, where it 
ends. The explorer is here not far from the surface, 
as is proven by these sandstone blocks. It is said that 
at times in this vicinity the rumblings of railroad trains 
overhead are audible. 

Returning to the Rotunda we look down a deep 
gorge called the Dismal Hollow, more uncanny far 
than any scene amid the Kaatskills, made famous by 



92 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the facile pen of Irving. A black opening in the mas- 
sive walls admits us to Franklin Avenue, about a quar- 
ter of a mile long, and leading to Serena's Arbor, one 
of the unfrequented but most romantic grottoes of the 
cavern. Here the walls are studded with inconceiv- 
ably beautiful botryoidal concretions of lime carbonate. 
Massive onyx columns reach sheer to the sandstone 
roof. Water trickles down with perpetual music and 
finds its way out by crevices in the floor, through which 
a lamp can be lowered and a glimpse thus be had of 
other scenes that are rarely explored. 

Returning again to Call's Rotunda and taking the 
left-hand branch, as we are going, we are led directly 
to Croghan's Hall, a room some sixty feet wide and 
about thirty feet high. It contains several large stalac- 
tites, some of them marred by vandals. The material 
is translucent and extremely hard; being quite equal 
to what is commercially known as Mexican onyx. It 
is a hard carbonate of lime, such as was described by 
Pliny as alabaster, and the name of "oriental alabas- 
ter" is given to it by Dana, to distinguish it from the 
common alabaster, which is a variety of gypsum, or 
the sulphate of lime. 

On our right is a black and deep pit, called the 
Maelstrom. It has generally been described as one 
hundred and seventy-five feet deep ; but as measured by 
Mr. Ben Hains and the writer it is only eighty-eight feet 
in depth. If it were an open-air well of that depth 
the descent into it would not be regarded as such a very 
remarkable feat. But it is quite another thing to go 
down into a mysterious chasm, yawning amid the 
rocks, miles from the entrance of this tremendous 
cavern. Hence it really took a degree of courage, ou 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 93 

the part of Mr. W. C. Prentice, son of the poet-editor, 
George D. Prentice, of Louisville, to go down thither 
in quest of adventures. The story was told at the time 
in the Louisville papers, and was done into spirited 
verse by George Lansing Taylor, D. D. According 
to these accounts the young hero was lowered by a 
stout rope, amid fearful and enchanting scenes, that 
had never been beheld since creation's morning until 
brought to view by the faint rays of his solitary lamp. 
Midway he encountered a waterfall, spouting from the 
wall, into whose shower he unavoidably swung. At 
last he stood on the solid rock at the bottom of the pit. 
On returning to the spot where he had hitched his rope 
to a stalactite, he found it disengaged and dangling 
beyond his reach. Ingeniously twisting the wires of 
his lamp into a long hook, he caught hold again, and 
then signaled to the guides to draw him up. This they 
did with such zeal (believe it who may) as to set the 
cable on fire by friction, so that one of them had to 
crawl out on the timber across which it ran and pour 
water on it to extinguish the flame ! These embellish- 
ments really brought the whole story into discredit. 
But our investigations recently made prove that Pren- 
tice bought the rope in Louisville for the purpose, and 
that he often narrated his adventures afterward as true. 
The main fact of his actually descending into the Mael- 
strom is also verified by guides now living. 

According to the guides Matt and William, a certain 
telegraph operator, Richard Babbit by name, was 
lowered by them to the bottom of the Maelstrom during 
Mr. Proctor's management of the cave. Mr. F. J. 
Stevenson, of London, in 1863, in his letters to his 
mother, now in our possession, tells the story at great 



94 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

length of his own descent into this terrible pit, with the 
help of two guides, Nicholas Bransford and Frank Mon- 
brun, and in the presence of thirty witnesses. On the 
15th of May, 1905, Mr. Benjamin F. Einbigler, of New 
York City, and Mr. John M. Nelson, guide, were lowered 
by ropes held by Levi Woodson and Edward Hawkins, 
the rope-length being exactly ninety-seven feet eight 
inches. Their account, given to me personally, varies ma- 
terially from the earlier descriptions, and is worthy of 
unquestioned acceptance. The only way to adjust the 
differences appears to be by supposing many changes to 
have taken pace in the Maelstrom during the forty or 
more years that elapsed between the earlier and later 
descents. The most that the ordinary visitor will 
be apt to do, or indeed would be allowed to do, is to peer 
over the crumbling brink and wonder that any sane 
mortal should venture down such an awful abyss. 

Croghan's Hall is estimated by pacing to be ninety- 
six hundred yards from the entrance to the Mammoth 
Cave, and is usually spoken of as its "end." But who 
can tell where the real termination of so vast a laby- 
rinth may lie? At any rate we have more to see before 
we emerge to daylight. 

Accordingly, retracing our steps through the crystal- 
line avenues whereby we approached, we reach Mary's 
Vineyard, descend again to the level of El Ghor, enter 
Boone Avenue, and visit what is practically a new por- 
tion of the great cavern, although there are signs of its 
having been explored long ago by unknown visitors. 

A well-worn path conducts us to a chasm down 
whose slope we pick our way to a still lower level and 
find ourselves in what was described on Stephen Bishop's 
map, in 1845, as Miriam Avenue, so named for a Jewess, 
a member of the Gratz family. 



THE RIVER ROUTE 95 

Diverging to the right, by a narrow and winding way 
that returns under Miriam Avenue, and which we named 
for one of our photographers Pinson's Pass, we pres- 
ently emerge into a noble avenue named the Martel 
Avenue, in honor of the famous cave-hunter of France, 
Edward A. Martel, editor of La Nature, and for many 
years general secretary of La Societe de Speleogie, the 
only society of its kind. The point where we enter it is 
called, from its singular shape, Bottle Hall. Were we 
to go toward the left in Martel Avenue we should find 
the way rugged and difficult ; but would be rewarded by 
a glimpse of Helietite Hall, where are found those curi- 
ous, twisted, distorted stalactites known as "helictites." 
Several small passages branch off from this long avenue, 
beyond which it finally terminates in Galloway's Dome. 

The right-hand portion of Martel Avenue soon brings 
us to the bed of a brook, nearly dry at the time of our 
visit, but that must at times be deeply covered by swiftly 
fiowing water. Ripple marks of sand alternate with fiat 
masses of jet-black flint. Stranded here and there are 
visible knots of wood, roots of cornstalks, and other 
things seeming to have been recently swept in from the 
surface. Two domes in the vicinity are named Nelson's 
Domes, for that intrepid explorer, John M. Nelson, 
formerly a guide, but now residing at Glasgow. Some 
more early pioneer inscribed the date "1848" on a rock 
beyond them. Mr. Norman A. Parrish, a professional 
"steeple-climber," came as far as this in 1904 and wrote 
me a description of his adventures. 

It was reserved for Mr. B. F. Einbigler, already 
mentioned in these pages, to avail himself of certain 
footholds over a risky ledge of limestone by means of 
which he crossed where others had turned back. In his 



96 MAMMOTH CAVE 

honor the great overhanging dome is named "Einbigler 
Dome," and a larger one a hundred yards beyond was 
named by himself, for his sister, who visited it, the 
"Edna Dome." This dome differs from most others by 
growing broader above than it is below, seeming really 
to open upon some cross-cavern. 

On the 15th of May, 1907, Edward Hawkins scaled 
the wall of the pit underneath the Einbigler Dome; 
being followed by Einbigler and Bransford. At a later 
time Mr. H. M. Pinson took in the headlight of an 
automobile, which was still there on the 18th of June, 
when I visited the locality with William Bransford and 
Prank Barry, guides. 

Scaling a wall at the end of Hawkins Way, we found 
ourselves on the level floor of a dome sixty feet in 
diameter and perhaps two hundred feet high. A lofty 
gateway opens from it into another dome of equal 
dimensions, and through similar arches we visit in suc- 
cession five vast domes arranged as a sigmoidal group. 
A high window from the fifth dome looks into an ir- 
regular room, where a downfall of rocks blocks further 
progress. In this fifth dome also a waterfall leaps from 
the apex to the floor, where it vanishes down a chasm. 
The majestic walls of all the domes rise in horizontal 
tiers, each tier being about ten feet in thickness and 
fringed by beautiful stalactites. This mighty masonry 
ascends in narrowing circles till the searchlight barely 
enables us to descry the oval white tablet forming the 
apex, girt by onyx pendants. Vertically the walls are 
richly corrugated from top to bottom. The entire series 
of five united domes exceeds four times the magnitude 
of Gorin's Dome. Ages untold were required for the 
chemical and mechanical action whereby this surprising 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 97 

subterranean cathedral was carved in silence broken only 
by the wild, pattering waterfall or the heavier cataract. 

Let me anew express my personal obligation to the 
Mammoth Cave management for having marked their 
appreciation of my long-continued and enthusiastic 
interest in their wonderful cavern by naming, with the 
approval of the discoverer and the guides, this remark- 
able group of domes, "Hovey's Cathedral." 

A glance at the map will show that Kaemper and 
Bishop advanced beyond what has just been described, 
and found two more domes, to one of which Kaemper 
gave the name of a German lady, calling it "Gerta's 
Grotto," while the other we have named "Creighton's 
Dome," for an early and otherwise unknown explorer, 
whose footprints were found here, and who carved his 
name on the rocks near by. 

There is no way out other than that by which we 
have come in. Hence we retrace our steps through 
Martel and Boone Avenues, pause to refresh ourselves 
at Hebe's Spring, traverse El Ghor, Silliman's Avenue, 
cross Echo River again by boat, and the River Styx by 
the natural bridge. 

But before ascending to the surface let us make a 
special trip to the Mammoth Dome, which is as won- 
derful a place as any other in all this marvelous region 
of silence and eternal night.* In order to do this we 
enter Sparks' Avenue, named for Mr. C. A. Sparks, of 
New York City. This avenue begins with Bandit Hall, 
located at the foot of the Corkscrew. Around us the 
immense rocks are tossed in the wildest confusion. 
But the avenue itself is made easy going by the 

*The Mammoth Dome is now included in Route I. 



98 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

removal of obstructions and by the excavation of 
trenches, where otherwise we should have to stoop. 
Branches from it are known as Briggs' Avenue and 
Sylvan Avenue, the latter leading to Clarissa's Dome, 
where are exhibited the so-called "petrified saw-logs," 
which are merely prostrated stalactites. 

"When we first visited the Mammoth Dome, in 1878, 
we were assured that nobody else had been there for 
seven years. Tom Lee was our guide, and the account 
of our adventures appeared in Scribner 's Monthly Maga- 
zine for October, 1880. It is now reproduced for the 
reader, with modifications made by consulting notes taken 
at the time, as well as on subsequent visits. 

Barton, my artist, was fascinated with drawing the 
"Corkscrew"- — meaning by this ambiguous term the 
exit from River Hall bearing that suggestive name. 
Hence Tom and I went alone through Sparks' Avenue 
till we emerged on a ledge thirty feet long and ten feet 
wide, where we were suddenly confronted by a realm 
of empty darkness. Our four lard-oil lamps were 
swung in vain aloft and over the edge of the terrace. 
They revealed neither floor, wall, or roof of that sol- 
emn domain. Astonished, I acted on a momentary 
impulse and told Tom to go back for Barton, more 
lamps, and fireworks. It was not until Tom's glim- 
mering light had vanished that I realized what a 
reckless thing had been done. The solitude was 
dreadful. I sat for a time on the edge of the ter- 
race, amusing myself by tbrowing ignited oil papers, 
by means of which I discovered the floor far below 
me, and also brought to view a rude ladder, with 
several missing rungs, and blackened by age and 
decay. My sensations were overpowering, and I pru- 




MAMMOTH DOME. 
Ruins of Karnak. 



THE KIVER ROUTE 99 

dently withdrew to the closer embrace of the narrow 
avenue and whiled the time away by catching cave 
crickets, of which there were hundreds. Barton refused 
to leave until his sketch was done, and accordingly 
an hour or more passed by before he and Tom joined 
me, bringing twenty lamps, with plenty of red fire and 
magnesium. 

Carefully descending the treacherous ladder that no 
foot had pressed for at least seven years, we reached 
the floor safely. We found that it sloped down to a 
dismal pool, into which tumbled a cataract higher than 
Niagara, though of slender size. By burning chemical 
fires at several points at once we lighted up the huge 
dome, and estimated its dimensions to be about four 
hundred feet in length, one hundred and fifty feet in 
greatest width, and varying from eighty to one hundred 
and fifty feet or more in height. The walls were seen 
to be curtained by alabaster drapery, hanging in ver- 
tical folds that varied in size from a pipestem to a saw- 
log; and these folds were decorated by heavy fringes at 
intervals of about twenty feet. 

A huge gateway at the farther end of the hall opens 
into a room so like the ruins of Luxor and Karnak that 
we named it the Egyptian Temple. The floor here 
is paved with stalagmitic blocks, stained by red and 
black oxides into a natural mosaic. Six colossal col- 
umns, eighty feet high by twenty-five in diameter, stand 
in a semi-circle, flanked by pyramidal towers. The 
material of these shafts is gray oolite, fluted by deep 
furrows, with sharp ridges between, the whole column 
being veneered with yellow stalagmite, rich as jasper, 
and covered by tracery as elaborate as Chinese carv- 
ing. The capitals are jutting slabs of limestone, and 



100 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the bases are garnished by mushroom-shaped stalagmites. 
The largest of these we named Caliban's Cushion. 

While examining these formations I noticed au 
opening behind the third column in the row, and 
clambering down a steep descent reached gloomy cata- 
combs underneath the temple which have since then 
been more fully explored, but without finding much of 
interest. On our way back to the terrace we noticed 
overhead a black opening which Tom assured me was 
identical with the Crevice Pit in Little Bat Avenue. 
He also showed me the spot where a rusty lamp was 
found on the floor of the Egyptian Temple, and that I 
afterward obtained as a treasure for my cave cabinet. 

The story of the Crevice Pit is well worth telling, as 
originally told by R. M. Bird, M. D., in 1839, and 
confirmed by later authorities. It seems that Mr. 
Gatewood convinced the owners of the cave, whose 
agent he was, that the richest deposit of nitrous earth 
would doubtless be found under the Crevice Pit. To 
test this Mr. Wilkins took a rope forty-five feet long 
and fastened a lamp to it, which he then lowered into 
the pit. The rope accidentally caught fire, and the 
result was the loss of the lamp. That was a serious 
loss in those days, for it could not be replaced short of 
a trip to Lexington. Accordingly a miner climbed 
down to a shelf in the ugly black hole and tried to 
regain his lamp by feeling around for it with his staff. 
But suddenly the stick slipped from his hand and went 
rattling down the abyss. Wilkins then offered a reward 
of two dollars for the recovery of the lamp. A sprightly 
young negro, named Little Dave, volunteered to be let 
down, as a sort of animated plummet, to sound the 
depth of the pit. The story he told on being drawn up 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 101 

again was so wonderful that nobody believed him. 
He told of a spacious, splendid dome, bigger than 
the Rotunda, with tall columns and other magnificent 
features, now seen by every visitor to the Mammoth 
Dome. But Little Dave's reward, besides the promised 
two dollars, was the reputation of being either crazy or 
the champion liar of Kentucky. 

Several futile attempts have been made to ascer- 
tain the true depth of the Crevice Pit. Edmund C. 
Lee, in 1835, tied a stone to a string and "struck bot- 
tom at two hundred and eighty feet"; and as Lee was 
a civil engineer his statement was for years quoted 
without dispute. In the summer of 1896, Hovey and 
Call ascertained its true depth. It was not an easy 
task, owing to the dangerous nature of the opening. 
First we lowered a light plummet, which lodged after 
going down about thirty feet. But the weight of the 
cord kept pulling itself out of hand till one hundred 
and forty feet had gone down, when the trick was sus- 
pected. Probably Mr. Lee was deceived in this way, 
as many another cave explorer has been. Thus Eldon 
Hole, in Derbyshire Peak, in England, was measured 
as being seven hundred and fifty feet deep, when its real 
depth was only one hundred and eighty-six feet. 

Then attaching a lighted lamp to a cord, Doctor all 
lowered it, while I stood on the opposite edge and 
watched it go down, calling out whenever it lodged, so 
that it might be pulled off and started down again. 
Leaving the lamp there, to be located afterward by 
going around through Sparks' Avenue to the Mam- 
moth Dome, we next lowered a heavy stone by a cord, 
making allowance for stretching. The cord was then 
measured by a steel tape. The average result of our 



L02 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

several measurements fixed the distance from the brink 
of the Crevice Pit to the foot of the ladder in the Mam- 
moth Dome as being eighty-eight feet. That point, 
however, is not the bottom of the dome. Doctor Call 
afterward measured the remaining distance, and found it 
to be thirty-one feet, which must be added to the previ- 
ous figure, making the distance one hundred and nine- 
teen feet. But we must not forget to add the space 
excavated by the top of the dome above the mouth of 
the Crevice Pit, and which is certainly as much as 
thirty feet. Putting all this together, we are safe in 
asserting that the distance from the highest to the low- 
est point in the Mammoth Dome exceeds one hundred 
and fifty feet. This was afterward confirmed by my 
method of balloon measurement. 

Now our steps are turned toward the mouth of the 
cave. Back we go, through Sparks' Avenue to Bandit 
Hall. Thence we climb up and up through the Cork- 
screw till fairly bewildered with its windings. It is 
a place to test our latent powers of orientation — that 
marvelous gift that guides the homing pigeons in their 
vast aerial flights. Professor Brewer and the writer 
agreed while amid these mazes, and also in other parts 
of the great cavern, that whenever either said to the 
other, "Point east," the command should be instantly 
obeyed. A moment's pause for reflection would spoil 
it all. But instantaneous obedience was, in frequent 
instances, rewarded by the pointing of the finger 
toward flic sunrise. Sometimes we would vary the 
command by bidding each other to point toward the 
north, and with equally satisfactory results, provided 
we could trust instinct instead of reason. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 103 

Cave animals, hundreds of them, find their way 
about without guide, map, lamplight, and even without 
eyes. Dogs lost in the cave invariably find their way 
out. The writer gave a story of canine adventure in 
St. Nicholas Magazine for April, 1882, the main facts 
of which were as follows : Jack, the veteran house-dog, 
was a cautious brute, who went with us to the Iron 
Gate, peered between the bars, and then trotted reso- 
lutely back to the hotel. Brigham, his frisky comrade, 
pushed ahead and explored on his own account. One 
day he ran off after a cave rat, and we had to leave 
him to his fate. After two days he and Jack w r ere 
found on opposite sides of the Iron Gate, exchanging 
experiences. We tracked the path taken by the run- 
away and found that he had crossed streams, floundered 
through mud-holes, climbed cliffs, and apparently gone 
up through the Corkscrew to the Iron Gate, where we 
were glad to greet him as a hero. He may have been 
aided by scenting our trail, but we gave him credit for 
a remarkable gift of "orientation." 

Has the earth lungs? And does it breathe? It cer- 
tainly seems so to us as we finally emerge from the 
mouth of the cavern. "Antros, " the Greek name for 
cave, simply means "a breathing place," as if through 
caves, as nostrils, the earth inhaled and exhaled the 
vital air. Down in the dark recesses where we have 
been it was almost possible to hear the beating of 
Nature's heart. The long avenues are the superb 
arteries through which flows her life. How easy our 
own respiration has been amid the pure, exhilarating 
air that comes oxygenated from the central reservoirs 
of the globe. As we climb upward to the garish light 
of day we feel the loss of those strong and invigor- 



104 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ating atmospheric influences. We almost dread the 
humidity, the heavy odors, the suffocating exhalations 
of the weeds, trees, grasses, and flowers. Every visitor 
is surprised at what he experiences, particularly ou 
emerging from the River Route, where for nine hours 
he has been stimulated by the oxygenated air. Linger- 
ing awhile near the entrance to get used to the yellow 
sunlight, or the silvery light of the moon, w r e also grow 
accustomed to the oppressive atmosphere that sweeps 
through the Kentucky woods, and which would ordi- 
narily be described as the purest country air. 

Finally, breaking away from the fascination of the 
wide and forever open mouth of the great cavern, that 
seems to be tacitly inviting us to renew our interior 
explorations, we cross the rocky platform, the rural 
road, the vineclad valley, and climb the forest path- 
way to the crest of the bluff. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 
ITS FAUNA AND FLORA 

QUITE thirty years passed away after the discovery 
of Mammoth Cave before the adventurous spirit of 
Stephen Bishop devised a rude way to cross the 
Bottomless Pit. Soon after the rivers were discovered, 
which followed immediately after this daring adventure, 
the earliest specimens of crayfish and blind-fish were 
also found. Previous to this time occasional mention 
was made of the ''cave crickets" and the "cave rats," 
which the miners and early visitors imagined to be the 
common Norway or domestic rat. That was all. 

It is an interesting fact that, with the exception of 
the blind-fish, the earliest descriptions of animals from 
the Mammoth Cave were by Europeans. All the 
American visitors appear to have had little regard for 
anything except the scenic features of the cavern. But 
in 1844 there were described two blind beetles, one 
blind spider, and the blind crayfish, all in a German 
scientific publication, and by Doctor T. Tellkampf. Two 
years previously, 1842, Doctor DeKay had described in 
the Natural History of New York the blind-fish under 
the name of Amblyopsis spelceus, making the Mammoth 
Cave form, which was then alone known, the type of 
the genus. Doctor Jeffries Wyman published a minute 
description of the Amblyopsis spekeus, with interesting 
anatomical details, in 1843. (See Vol. xlv, American 
Journal of Science and Art, page 94.) But it yet 
remained for Doctor Tellkampf to still further describe 
and illustrate this species, his work appearing in the 
New York Journal of Medicine, July, 1845, with plates 

(1055 



106 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

showing the entire fish and its anatomy, constituting 
the first known illustrations of this form. 

It was, however, not until 1871 that very much 
became known about the various forms of life found in 
this cave. In the previous year Doctor A. S. Packard 
and Professor F. W. Putnam had made extensive col- 
lections and described them, their work appearing in 
the American Naturalist in 1871, with excellent descrip- 
tions and fine illustrations. Later, two days' active 
collecting was done in the cavern by Mr. IT. G. 
Hubbard, who published his results in the American 
Entomologist, Vol. m, in 1880. Numerous shorter 
papers have appeared, in all about one hundred, in 
various languages, in scientific journals and the pro- 
ceedings of learned societies, and these all add a little 
to our knowledge of the life forms in the cavern. 

The most extensive treatise on the animals of this 
cave is to be found in the Memoirs of the National 
Academy of Sciences, and is a memoir on Cave Animals 
of North America, by Doctor A. S. Packard, junior, pub- 
lished in 1889. In this work will be found all accessible 
information relating to the cavern fauna up to the time 
of its publication; since then, however, extensive col- 
lections made by the writer have revealed a number of 
new forms which have been elsewhere described and 
figured.* 

The facts connected with these interesting animals 
are so scattered that it has been deemed of considera- 
ble interest to many students to indicate the nature of 
the forms and the localities where they are likely to be 



*See the American Naturalist, Vol. xxxi, pp. 357-392, pis. x, xi, May, 1897; 
"Some Notes on the Fauna and Flora of Mammoth Cave," by R. Ellsworth 
Call; also "Notes on the Flora of Mammoth Cave," by R. Ellsworth Call 
Journal Cincinnati Society Natural History, 1897, Vol. xix, pp. 79, 80. 



^^mm^ 




SCOTERPES COPEI (Packard). 
Named by Packard for Dr. E. D. Cope, the eminent naturalist. 

A. Half the natural size. 

B. Enlarged view of head. Eyeless. Showing the tactile, 
hairs on the two anterior segments. 





PHALANGES ARMATA (Tellkampf). 
A typical, blind, and very ancient cave spider, of the group 
belonging to the Harvestman, or " granddaddy longlegs." The 
single eye is abortal. Pigment only remains. The microscope 
shows that the nerve extending from it to the central ganglia 
has disappeared. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 107 

seen by the visitor. In doing so there has been no 
attempt at systematic classification beyond indicating 
the greater zoological groups to which the forms belong. 
If the visitor desires to collect, permission being 
secured from the management beforehand, it will be 
well to remember that the drier portions of the cave 
will afford him little or nothing save lost time ; but in 
the damper portions of his several trips he may hope to 
have abundant success. Thus, to instance a few local- 
ities, he will probably find specimens of three kinds of 
flies in and around the decaying specimens of Coprinus, 
which he will find at various places along the River 
Route. With them, also, will be found occasional 
specimens of the small brown beetle, Adelops. In the 
Way to Pits and Domes, near Richardson's Spring, he 
will find historic collecting ground, for this is one of 
Packard's richest localities. Under the damp flat 
stones he will here take Tellkampf 's small white spider, 
and that interesting little thysanurid, Campodea cookei, 
described from this place by Packard. Scurrying over 
the muddy w r alk or hiding under the flat stones go a 
number of brown beetles, to which has been given the 
name of Anophthalmias. A little farther on and under 
the old timbers which are here to be seen will be 
secured white myriapods, belonging to Scotcrpes. If 
the characteristics of the locality be carefully noted, 
the visitor may be sure that any similar locality will 
afford him other specimens of the same or other kinds. 
At the end of Gratz Avenue and in Flint Dome, 
should the visitor go to that portion of the cavern, in 
the waters of Shaler's Brook and in the pools in the 
midst of the dome, he will find myriads of the small 



108 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

white crustacean, Ccecidotea stygia; occasional speci- 
mens may also be taken in Richardson's Spring. 

The larger crustacean, Cambarus pellucidus, can be 
had only in the Echo and connected rivers, though the 
writer collected two specimens in Flint Dome, until 
then not known to have any connection with the rivers 
themselves. Of course Echo River will be, with its 
pools, the only place where may be found the blind- 
fish. And neither of these last named forms will prove 
to be abundant. They are to be collected with great 
difficulty, even though they may commonly be seen by 
the visitor as he wends his way along the rivers, on 
both "ides thereof. Occasional specimens are stranded 
and left in pools which become quite dry on the reces- 
sion of the waters after a rise. Roaring River, never 
visited by the tourist, which is a succession of muddy 
pools for a long distance, is a famous place to collect 
them, but for these the visitor must arrange with the 
management. 

It is not proposed in this place to review the entire 
known fauna of the cave nor to list, with descriptions, 
all of its plants. The casual visitor will have little use 
for either, because, unless he is a naturalist, and some- 
what acquainted with the habits of the animals and 
plants, he will search long in vain ; when he does find 
their favorite haunts, with few exceptions he will dis- 
cover that they are rare. 

The following list is complete up to the present time, 
and contains all the species which are certainly known 
in the cave: 




THE "BLIND BEETLE." 
Anophthalmias menetresii (Motsch). 

A. Magnified six times, showing tactile hairs on thorax, legs 
and antennae. Found in the Labyrinth, Washington Hall, etc. 

B. The antenna of Anophthalmus magnified to show more 
plainly the peculiar development of compensatory sensitive tactile 
hairs. 




BLIND BEETLE. 
Anophthalmus. 
Their life history unknown, 
except that their eggs are laid 
in the sand in the avenue from 
Lovers' Leap to Lee's Cisterns, 
near the pool just beyond 
Gatewood's Dining Table. 




A SCAVENGER BEETLE. 

Called "Blind," but it has 
eyes, and bright ones. Found 
abundantly on and around 
chicken bones, etc., in Wash- 
ington Hall and elsewhere. 
Drawn fourteen times the size 
of the original. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 109 

INFUSORIA. 

Chilomonas emarginata Ehrenberg. River Styx. 
Chilodon cucullulus Ehrenberg. River Styx. 
Monas kolpoda (?). Serena's Bower. 
Monas socialis (?). Serena's Bower. 

VERMES. 

Dendroeadum percsecum Packard. Shaler's Brook; Rich- 
ardson 's Spring. 

Lumbrieus sp. Banks of Echo River. 

CRUSTACEA. 

Canthocamptus cavernarum Packard. Wandering Willie's 
Spring. 

Ca?cidotea stygia Packard. Flint Dome; Shaler's Brook. 
Crangonyx vitreus Cope. Flint Dome; Richardson's Spring. 
Crangonyx sp. Shaler's Brook. 
Cambarus pellucidus Tellkampf. Echo River; Flint Dome. 

ARACHNIDA. 

Ladaps cavernicola Packard. Labyrinth. 

Gamasus troglodytes Packard. Locality unknown. 

Belba bulbipedatus Packard. Labyrinth. 

Chthonius packardii Hagen. Mammoth Dome; Labyrinth. 

Phalangodes armata Tellkampf. Bottomless Pit; Gorin's 
Dome; Labyrinth; Mary's Vineyard; Hovey's Ramble. 

Anthrobia mammouthia Tellkampf. Labyrinth; Bottom- 
less Pit. 

Cadotes juvenilis Keyserling. Locality unknown. 

Liocranoides unicolor Keyserling. Labyrinth. 

Linopodes mammouthia Banks. Labyrinth. 

Rhagidia cavicola Banks. Labyrinth. 

Willibaldia incerta Emerton. Labyrinth. 

Phanetta subterranea Emerton. Labyrinth. 

INSECTA. 
Dorypteryx ( ?) hageni Banks. Darnall 's Way. 
Smynthurus mammouthia Banks. Darnall 's Way, 
Entomobrya cavicola Banks. Darnall 's Way. 
Campodea cookei Packard. All moist stations under stones, 
especially in Richardson's Spring region; Hovey's Ramble. 



110 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Machilis cavernicola Tellkampf. Labyrinth. 

Hadensecus subterraneus Scudder. Everywhere, nearly. 

Elipsocus sp. 

Adelops hirtus Tellkampf. Numerous stations; especially 
abundant in Washington Hall. 

Anophthalmia tellkampfii Eriehson. All moist stations. 

Anophthalmia menetresii Motsch. Labyrinth; Washing- 
ton Hall. 

Anophthalmus interstitialis Hubbard. Washington Hall. 

Anophthalmia striatus Motsch. Labyrinth. 

Anophthalmus audax Horn. Washington Hall. 

Sciara inconstans Fitch. Mammoth Dome. 

Limosina stygia Coquillett. Mammoth Dome. 

Phora rufipes Meig. Labyrinth; Gorin's Dome; Hovey's 
Eamble. 

Seoterpes copei Packard. Labyrinth; Bottomless Pit; Mary's 
Vineyard; Eiver Hall. 

VERTEBRATA. 

Neotoma magister Baird. Everywhere; especially abun- 
dant in Washington Hall near lunching station. 

Peromyseus leucopus Eafinesque. Eotunda. 

Vespertilio lucifugus LeConte. Eotnnda; Little Bat Ave- 
nue; Olive's Bower. 

Vesperugo carolinensis Geoff. St. Hil. Audubon's Avenue. 

Spelerpes longicaudus Green. Mouth of Cave; Flint Dome. 

Amblyopsis spelams DeKay. Echo Eiver; Eoaring Eiver. 

Typhlichthys subterraneus Girard. Echo Eiver. 

Chologaster agassizii Putnam. Echo Eiver. 

MOLLUSCA. 
Carychium stygium Call. Mammoth Dome. 

This is not an extensive list of animals for so large 
a cavern, but it is to be remembered that collection is 
very difficult under the conditions which prevail in the 
cave. The list, such as it is, results from the occasional 
work of numerous collectors; an exhaustive and complete 
study of the fauna has yet to be instituted. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. Ill 

PLANTiE. 

Very much less is known of the plants of the cave 
than of its animals. Only the most cursory collections 
have yet heen made, though the writer has sought to 
make complete the collections of microscopic forms. 
Many of those collected were indeterminate, and others 
are yet undescribed. This will, in a measure, account 
for the meagre list. 

It should be remarked in passing that with but two 
or three exceptions the forms found are all such as 
occur on the surface of the ground, and all are fungi or 
related groups. The list now following contains all 
certainly known at this time : 

Coprinus micaceus Bull. Eiver Hall only. Groups of this 
toad-stool are sometimes found along Eiver Hall, near the boat 
landing, and at the Cascades, near the Kiver Styx. 

Fomes applanatus Pers. Labyrinth. 

Khizomorpha molinaris. Abundant on old timbers in 
Mammoth Dome. Probably, like its foreign relatives, this form 
will be found to be phosphorescent. 

Microascus longirostis Zukal. Washington Hall. 

Zasmidium cellare Fr. Corkscrew, at top, on old barrel 
head. 

Mucor mucedo Linn. Labyrinth; Mary's A r ineyard; Eiver 
Hall. 

Gymnoascus setosus Eidam. Washington Hall. 

Sporotrichum densum Link. On dead crickets. 

Sporotrichum flavissimum Link. Washington Hall. 

Laboulbenia subterranea. On Anophthalmus. 

Ccemansia sp. Washington Hall. 

Papulospora sp. Washington Hall. 

Bouderia sp. Washington Hall. 

The great number of forms from "Washington Hall 
is to be explained by the fact that in that locality may 
be found a great mass of refuse from dining parties; 



112 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

on the rejectamenta of lunches many varieties of minute 
fungi occur, though the spores are quite likely intro- 
duced by visitors and in or with the food. A single 
very small but beautiful Peziza occurs on the timbers 
in Mammoth Dome, but is certainly introduced from 
without. The same fact is true of amorphous forms of 
Fomcs applanatus taken from bridge timbers in the 
Labyrinth. 



BLIND ANIMALS: THEIR ENVIRONMENT 
AND DEVOLUTION. 

SINCE Doctor Call prepared his admirable chapter 
on Cavern Fauna and Flora a few early accounts 
have come to light, and some recent additions have 
been made to the literature on the subject, especially con- 
cerning its bearing on the theory of evolution. 

The very first account ever published about the 
eyeless fish was by Rev. Robert Davidson, D. D., Presi- 
dent of Transylvania University, in a small volume 
from the press of A. T. Skillman, Lexington, Kentucky, 
1840, entitled, "An Excursion to the Mammoth Cave, 
and the Barrens of Kentucky." Stephen Bishop had 
just crossed the Bottomless Pit and discovered what was 
then styled simply "The River," in whose sullen waters 
were found very remarkable "white fish without eyes, 
but with their other senses so acute that the slightest 
touch of the water overhead was sufficient to alarm them, 
and make them dart off like lightning." In 1842 W. T. 
Craige gave a single specimen of the blind fish to the 
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences ; and in that 
same year DeKay described it in his volume on Reptiles 
and Fishes (p. 187) in the Natural History of New York. 
He named it the Amblyopsis spelceus, meaning weak- 
eyed cave dweller. This was soon followed by articles 
by Wyman, Thompson, and Tellkampf. Typhlichthys 
subterraneans was first described by Girard in 1859 ; the 
Chologaster agassizii was described and named by Put- 
nam; and the Troglichthys rosece was thus named by 
Eigenmann. These four genera: Amblyopsis, Typhlich- 
thys, Chologaster, and Troglichthys, are grouped as a 
family, under the name of Amblyopsido?, and belong to 

(113) 



114 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the order of Haplomi. (E. D. Cope, Proceedings of 
A. A. A. S., Indianapolis, 1872, pp. 328, 333.) 

These, and certain other true subterranean fauna, 
may be regarded as mainly of Pleistocene origin ; Avhile 
a few are supposed to be remnants of Tertiary, or pos- 
sibly of Cretaceous life. 

Their strongly marked divergence from similar 
creatures found in open waters convinced the elder 
Agassiz that they were "specially created for the limits 
within which they dwell." This question will receive 
further attention later on. 

Insignificant as cave animals may seem to the care- 
less eye, these lowly minnows, crawfish, worms, flies, fleas, 
spiders, crickets, and beetles have been microscopically 
examined, dissected to their minutest anatomy, and 
laborious treatises written about them, bristling with 
words big enough to describe whales, mastodons, and 
mammoths. Indeed they have a voluminous bibliogra- 
phy, including contributions by Agassiz, Banta, Blatch- 
ley, Chilton, Cole, Cope, ( ( ollet, Cox, Dubois, Eigenmann, 
Forbes, Garman, Girard, Gunther, llama nn, Hay, 
Holmes, Hubbard, Jordan, Lankester, Nagel, Packard, 
Parker, Payne, Putnam, Richardson, Semper, Vire, 
Yerkes, and others, besides the authors of this Manual. 

The average size of a full-grown Amblyopsis spt In us^ 
the most famous of the blind-fish, is only about three 
and a half inches. Rarely it is found longer, and the 
Mammoth Cave guides tell us of specimens measuring 
eight inches. The writer never saw one that exceeded 
five inches in length. He is inclined to think that stray 
visitors from the surface waters have been sometimes 
mistaken for the true Amblyopsis. The blind-fish are 
found in pools, or the rills between the pools, and often 



BLIND ANIMALS. 115 

in deep wells in the vicinity of caves. They are dignified 
denizens of the darkness, often lying quietly on the 
muddy bottom of the waters, floating lazily on the 
surface, or slowly swimming along by the aid of their 
pectoral fins, though bringing the tail into action when 
disturbed, and darting rapidly away. 

What do cave creatures live upon? The question 
of food supply is always of prime importance. An 
animal with plenty to eat is apt to grow and unfold 
its organic life, whereas one half-starved will be likely 
to have its growth retarded, and certain features and 
functions changed or discontinued. 

Clearly strict vegetarians must be scarce in caverns 
because of the general paucity of vegetable life. Still, 
where there is some such matter, it is utilized. Cave 
crickets, centipedes, and myriapods, like the Pseudo- 
tremia and hairy Scoterpes, are known to live on the 
debris of leaves and wood, swept in annually by the 
overflowing streams. The cave carnivora are scavengers, 
subsisting on dead bats, rats, and refuse dragged in by 
beasts or left by human visitors. The cave crawfish 
(the Cambarus pellucidus) feeds on aquatic Crustacea 
which it deftly extracts with its pincerlike claws from 
under flat stones. The blind-fish catches the young 
crawfish when it can, and eats its eggs, preying also on 
the Crongonyx and other Crustacea, and, we regret to 
say, on minnows of its own kind. We have known one 
instance where a blind-fish caught and swallowed a 
fish that had eyes and ought to have known enough to 
escape. And, such is the conformity to conditions where 
plenty is the exception and scarcity the rule, that I have 
kept blind-fish for a whole year in an aquarium where 
there was no other food than the animalculoe and con- 



116 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

fervae growing in the water. Experiments of naturalists 
lead to the conjecture that the blind-fish are aided in 
search for prey by certain terminal buds on the snout, 
the head, and on the body. 

All observers agree that, when in captivity, the blind- 
fish thrive best in the dark. They are certainly sensitive 
to the light, though sightless. When placed in a trough 
partly covered and partly exposed to the light, they 
instinctively prefer the darkened portion of the trough. 
Eigenmann made a series of interesting experiments, 
not only in aquaria with blackened tunnels and parti- 
tions, but also in those that were illumined by the 
various colors of the spectrum, in order to see what reac- 
tion might follow. His conclusion was that the blind- 
fish strongly prefer red and shun blue. 

Sloan, Packard, Blatehley, and others agree with 
our own observations as to the torpidity of the organs 
of hearing in blind-fish, although it is said that ''the 
auditory spots" exist in them just as in fish in open 
streams. Eigenmann says that "blind-fishes detect 
vibrations with a frequency of one hundred per second, 
by means of sense organs in the skin." He adds very 
curious remarks as to the amatory contests in which the 
rival males vigorously punch and thrust each other while 
they quarrel for their mates. 

A general but erroneous notion prevails that the 
Aviblyopsis is viviparous. An instance is often quoted 
in which an adult fish was left alone in an aquarium and 
the next day was found with eight little ones. The ex- 
planation is that the young remain for about a month 
in the maternal gill pouch after being hatched from the 
egg, where they had previously been for about twenty- 
eight days. 






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HEAD Oj TYPHLICHTHYS SUBTERRANElJ. 2 . 

(Mammoth Cave.) 




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HEAD OP TYPHLICHTHYvS OSBORNI. 
(From Horse Cave, near Mammoth Cave.) 



I'.ioto liy Eigenmann. 




HADENCECUS SUBTERRANEUS (Scudder). 

A cave cricket — not grasshopper, but of the katydid family 
of Orthoptera. The pigmental eyes are sightless. The thorax is 
still somewhat brown, showing that the bleached condition ob- 
servable in most cave animals has not yet been hereditarily 
established. Observe the extraordinary antenme, as an instance 
of compensation. 



BLIND ANIMALS. 117 

As early as 1856 the writer visited certain romantic 
caves along the valley of the White River, near Mitchell, 
Indiana, where he saw blind-fish and blind crawfish, 
which he also observed in other Indiana caves. More 
recently the Mitchell caves have come into notice through 
the researches of Professor Carl H. Eigenmann, of the 
Indiana State University. Doctor Eigenmann began to 
give attention to subterranean fauna in 1886, and ten 
years later visited the Twin Caves and Dalton's Spring, 
at Mitchell, where he found abundant material for his 
biological laboratory. In 1893 the State Legislature 
put about one hundred and eighty-two acres of the land 
around these caves in the keeping of the trustees of the 
University, at his suggestion and to further his researches 
and experiments. Thus encouraged, and also aided by 
grants from scientific societies, most valuable materials 
have been obtained, as well as from various other caves 
in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and elsewhere. The re- 
sults were made public by a number of papers read before 
scientific societies, and in bulletins from the University. 
In 1909 these were collated, with much new matter, and 
published, as a quarto monograph, by the Carnegie Insti- 
tution of Washington, under the title, ' ' Cave Vertebrates 
of America — a Study of Degenerative Evolution ; by 
Carl H. Eigenmann, Professor of Zoology, Indiana Uni- 
versity." This exhaustive work comprises two hundred 
and forty-one pages, with thirty-one full plates and 
seventy-two text-figures. It deals with cavern fauna 
as found all over the continent, from California to 
Cuba; but the main part of the work concerns blind 
vertebrates and their eyes, describing twelve varie- 
ties, eight of them belonging to the AnibJyopsidcE. Only 
seven hundred copies were printed, and hence the 
volume is not generally accessible. 



118 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

It is no new idea that subterranean life is highly 
instructive concerning the theory of evolution, the writer 
himself having repeatedly spoken on the subject before 
scientific societies. Evidently, if degeneration or devolu- 
tion follows as the result of the seclusion of certaia 
kinds of plants and animals in dark caverns, it must be 
by the withdrawal of forces and causes that, under favor- 
able environment, would work for evolution. For ex- 
ample, if we discover the partial or total absence of 
certain muscles, nerves, or organs, as the result of 
degeneration carried on for many generations, the in- 
ference is fair that these atrophied parts would be duly 
evolved again were the process reversed and the cave 
animals to live for a sufficiently long period under the 
same conditions as their open-air congeners, in the sun- 
light and with abundant food. 

Every one has noticed how potatoes and turnips put 
forth colorless shoots when growing down cellar. It 
is even possible to raise a crop under such conditions; 
but the tubers are small and waxy, showing depaupera- 
tion. Imagine the process to go on for years or centuries, 
and the result might be a plant hardly to be recognized 
by comparison with the vegetables growing in the garden. 
Just as aquatic plants in cave waters are bleached, so 
with the true cavern fauna. The crawfish and crusta- 
ceans are white, or at best a pale brown. So with the 
blind-fish, the myriapods, the spiders, etc. Exceptions 
excite suspicion. Cave flies, for instance, which are a 
dull black, are able to fly in and out with occasional 
access to the open air. 

Plainly natural selection, or self-protection by choice 
of coloration, can not explain the cave-bleaching for ani- 
mals dwelling in perpetual and utter darkness. The 
bleaching seems simply due to the atrophy of those cells 



&* 



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RIVER 



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ROSCTTE CHAMBER 



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of <*« 



poov£ 



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/ Chinese Wall. 

2 Entrance to New Discovery. 

3 Entrance to Wild Goose Chase 

River Region. 

4 Uncle Torn^ Pool. 

5 Lizard Spring 

6 Twin Pits. 

7 Rums of Carthage. 



& 



'LT' 



12 



J 5 



16* 



DINING 
ROOM 



8 Rock Island. ~fc^UT£. 

9 Sandstone Tumbledown 

10 Ruins of Martinique. 

11 Register Avenue 

12 Starry Heavens and Milky Way. 

13 Bearskin Rohe. 

14 Phosphate Mountain. 

15 Hull of the Great Western. 

1 6 Catacombs. 

17 Pulpit Rock- 

18 Cascade Pit. 

19 Pearly Pool. 

20 Kangaroo Bend 



COLOSSAL CAVERN 



18 '9 
20' 



HORACE C. HOVEY 

PROM SURVEY BY EDGAR VAUGH 



SCALE OF FEET 
50 100 150 200 250 300 



BLIND ANIMALS. 119 

in which, under the stimulus of light, pigmental matter 
is secreted. 

The blind-fish furnish a typical example of panmixia 
(a term literally meaning "all mixed up"). We can 
imagine the first colony, captured by some catastrophe 
in underground waters, to have had their eyes simply 
weakened by disuse. In following generations the eyes 
would be shrunken and useless. This might begin by 
individual degeneration (ontogenetic panmixia) ; and 
then racial degeneration (or phylogenetic panmixia) 
would follow. Fish with atrophied eyes would transmit 
blindness to broods of young fish till a blind fauna was 
established. 

Let us note with almost pathetic interest the com- 
pensations given to the cave animals by Him who marks 
the sparrow's fall. This feature of evolutionary work 
has hardly had the attention it deserves. In cave 
insects, spiders, and Crustacea the form is elongated till 
in some cases it is truly grotesque. Many a time I have 
held a burning candle so near a cave cricket as to stop 
for fear of setting it afire ; and the experiment was 
regarded by it with indifference. But the least finger- 
touch of one of its extremely elongated and sensitive 
feelers, delicate as a spiderweb, woidd give the alarm, 
causing it to run away with ludicrous celerity. Cave 
beetles find their compensation in long stiff bristle-like 
hairs, so that they move about with remarkable facility. 
"We have kept in the same tank the common crawfish 
(Cambarus Bartonii) and the blind crawfish (Cambarus 
pellucidus) and observed their habits of feeding. A 
morsel thrown to the first would be seized and disposed 
of at once. But if dropped near the blind creature it 
would dart back and wave its long feelers, only approach- 



120 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ing the morsel by a series of cautious strategic move- 
ments. Do not forget this beneficent law of compensa- 
tion. Let us not lay too heavy a load on favorite 
theories, which certainly do account for many, but not 
for all things. Evolution is limited by environment and 
its process may even be reversed and become devolution. 
Let us not hurry. We are not like a sworn jury that 
must find a verdict and be discharged. There is plenty 
of time. "Wait and investigate. Pigeon-hole every fact, 
and wait. 

The best definition of evolution describes it as a con- 
tinual differentiation of the complex from the simple. 
First, simple forms; then the complex. But in cave 
fauna we find the process reversed; the complex forms 
are reverting to those that are more simple. Our limits 
forbid our either following further such fascinating 
problems, or taxing the reader's patience by moralizing. 
Yet we may affirm anew our cherished faith that all 
forms of life exist and go on under a Divine plan, 
whether by progression or retardation, by deprivation 
or compensation, by evolution or devolution, environed 
by darkness or light, amid profound caverns or amid 
the brave sunshine. Many things beyond our immediate 
comprehension are worthy of patient and prolonged in- 
vestigation. We may close this chapter by quoting the 
oft-quoted words of the former poet-laureate of Eng- 
land : 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
Hold you here, root and all in my hand, 
Little flower: but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 




Vaughan's Dome. 




Grand Crossing. 



THE COLOSSAL CAVERN 

By HORACE CARTER HOVEY 

IN the vicinity of Mammoth Cave are numerous smaller 
caves and grottoes, each with its peculiarities and 
attractions. One of these has the odd name of the 

Bed-quilt Cave, due it is said to the fact that an 
Indian quilt was once found there. No particular in- 
terest was taken in it until recently. No one knew that 
it led to one of the most magnificent caverns in America 
till after the latter had been otherwise discovered. 

The late Mr. William Garvin, a veteran soldier and 
guide through the mazes of the Mammoth Cave, told the 
writer that, on the 15th of July, 1895, he observed a 
hole in a hillside adjoining his own farm. Entering it 
he made his way into a large dome, of which the hole 
was the apex. Bringing ladders, he and his neighbors 
climbed down for sixty-six feet to the floor of the dome, 
whence they pursued a winding way amid the rugged 
rocks in a northerly direction for some twelve hundred 
feet, passing numerous objects of interest. Finally they 
were brought abruptly against a vertical Avail, whose 
floor was visible thirty-six feet below where they stood. 
By means of their ladders they climbed down to the bot- 
tom, and noted the five projecting points that suggested 
to the writer the name of the Quinque Dome. 

An article over my signature appeared in the Scien- 
tific American August 29, 1896, ascribing the first ex- 
ploration to a young man named Pike Chapman. The 
discovery has also been claimed for Robert "Woodson, 
who is said to have found it while searching for a spring. 
Possibly there were several simultaneous discoveries ; 
but we give full credit to the statement made to us per- 



122 THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 

sonally by Mr. "William Garvin. All the original en- 
trances have been wisely closed up by the present owners, 
partly to prevent spoliation and partly because the 
natural openings were hard to reach and for other 
reasons inconvenient. 

In January, 1896, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad 
Company purchased what is well named "The Colossal 
Cavern" from the late Dr. L. "W. Hazen, on whose farm 
the first known entrance was located, and for a time they 
employed him as their agent. As further explorations 
were pushed in various directions, the Company bought 
all the land under which its course was found to run, 
and expended large sums in widening narrow passages, 
smoothing rough places, building stairways where these 
were desirable, and did many other things for the com- 
fort of visitors. On their special invitation the writer 
visited the Colossal Cavern in 1903, and made a map of it 
from the notes of a survey by Edgar Vaughan and W. 
L. Marshall, which has been extensively used in the rail- 
road advertising brochures, and appears also along with a 
descriptive article by me in the Scientific American 
Supplement, November 21, 1903, parts of which have 
been published by others without giving the author due 
credit. (See also my article in Volume VI of the eleventh 
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) 

On the occasion of my visit the first use was made 
here of individual acetylene lamps, by whose aid the 
writer did some fairly good work in subterranean pho- 
tography, the results being published at the time. I 
was accompanied by the noted archaeologist, Mr. Gerard 
Fowke, and our guides were Messrs. J. M. and Morris 
Hunt, to whose kind attentions we were much indebted. 

So accurate was the instrumental survey already re- 




Samson's Pillar. 



•"BRIGHAft 

--THE 




QyeDog i SBa 






THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 123 

ferred to above, that by its means the Company found 
themselves able to force a new entrance at a locality 
where it was most desired by themselves ; and this is now 
the only mode of access to the cavern. It is at the 
foot of a steep hill, facing the west, and located a mile 
and a half from the entrance to the Mammoth Cave. The 
road thither winds along the margin of Eden Valley, 
into which it presently descends. Both this and the 
nearby Doyle Valley are true "sink holes" of great 
magnitude, with groves, farms, and habitations, but 
without running water, though gathering volumes of 
water during rainfalls, to empty them through pits 
into caverns underneath. Where these orifices have 
been closed up there are now ponds, with reeds and 
rushes. 

The entrance to Colossal Cavern, being wholly arti- 
ficial, has no special beauty, but is simply a convenient 
door and stairway, in passing through which we notice 
the outward draft of air that extinguishes our lamps, 
to be relighted when fairly underground. The rock 
from which the cave is excavated is limestone of 
homogenous texture. Midway down the stairs we step 
aside to inspect what is termed the Chinese Wall, which 
forms the rim of a pool in a room about one hundred 
feet in diameter. Small stalactites cover the ceiling, 
and there are numerous stalagmites, one of the largest 
of them being named the Pagoda, from its fancied re- 
semblance to an Eastern temple of that description. 

Some two hundred feet within, a path diverges to 
the so-called "New Discovery" and to the closed entrance 
from the Coates farm. Still beyond it is a rambling 
way that is known as the Wild Goose Chase, because 
it seems to get nowhere. 



124 THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 

On our right, as we proceed in the main cave, is 
Uncle Tom's Pool, where we found the only specimen 
that we saw in the cave of the blind crawfish (Cambarus 
pellueidus). We were assured, however, that blind fish 
and other cave fauna abounded in the river region; and 
we saw in various parts of the cave blind beetles, flies, 
spiders, and crickets. 

On our left, one hundred and fifty feet beyond 
Uncle Tom's Pool, we were startled by seeing on the 
brink of a spring what looked like a great lizard, but 
which proved to be only a grotesque mass of metal- 
stained flint, three feet long, like a lizard in bronze. 
We named the canopy over it the Saurian Dome. Near 
Armstrong Pit and the Horseshoe Dome we observed 
many geodes in the wall, enclosing crystals of quartz 
and calcite. We also found fossil corals, known as 
" Zaphrentis," having value in determining the geologi- 
cal horizon of the limestone. 

In 1898 Mr. Edgar Vaughan crawled through a 
small hole on the right, distant some five hundred feet 
from the entrance, and found that it opened into an 
enormous dome, now bearing his name. This narrow 
opening has been artificially enlarged for easy access to 
Vaughan 's Dome, which by careful measurement is 
twenty-six feet wide (at one point forty feet), three 
hundred feet long, and by balloon tests seventy-eight feet 
high. The balloons used by Mr. Maypother in making 
this measurement were inflated by hot air, which is a 
better method than by hydrogen gas, besides being less 
expensive. The first balloon released shot to the roof 
like a rocket, striking with such force as to careen and 
catch fire, burning the retaining cord. Later experi- 
ments, more carefully made, were perfectly successful. 



THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 125 

At Grand Crossing the main cave is crossed by 
Florence Avenue, on a lower level, after running parallel 
with it for several hundred feet. This avenue has 
highly decorated walls. Midway in it are the Twin Pits, 
into one of which falls the Musical Shower, a cascade 
with remarkable reverberations. Florence Avenue enters 
the main cave at the Grand Galleries. Along the walls 
are many gypsum formations, resembling various kinds 
of flowers. Beyond the Lovers' Gallery, four hundred 
feet long by thirty feet wide, is a still grander 
enlargement, styled the Ruins of Carthage, resembling 
th2 demolished walls and battlements of a great metropo- 
lis. Taking into consideration the dimensions of this vast 
hall, four hundred feet long by one hundred feet wide 
and thirty feet high, then noting the fact that its nearly 
flat ceiling is one immense block of limestone, and 
reflecting on the additional fact that above it is an im- 
mense mass of rocky strata, upholding forest trees, 
we wonder how such a flat roof can support such au 
enormous superincumbent weight. The only object that 
looks at all like a support, though it can not properly be so 
regarded, is what is called Samson's Pillar, thirty feet in 
diameter, ne&r which the roof curves into an arch. 

In this vicinity we saw many fine saccharine incrusta- 
tions, as if some candy-maker had flung cartloads of 
gum-drops and other confectionery against the walls. 
Faces and figures, some lovely and others grotesque, 
stand out from nooks and corners in startling relief. 
One that is especially lifelike is known as Alice Ring- 
gold 's Face. 

A huge rock on our right, just beyond Samson's 
Pillar, has a remarkable resemblance to the stern of an 



126 THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 

ocean steam* r with her rudder hard aport, though un- 
shipped, and is an almost exact reproduction of a for- 
mation in tin 1 Mammoth Cave known as the Great 
Eastern. Tremendous forces have been at work, as is 
proved by the Ruins of Martinique and the Catacombs. 
We measured an enormous block, sixty feet long by 
twenty feet wide and ten feet thick, like the sarcophagus 
of an ancient Goliath of Gath. At a point two thousand 
feet from the entrance is a tumble-down called the 
Sandstone Mountain, where the cave cuts through the 
St. Louis limestone to the overlying Chester sandstone. 
It is said that the top of this mountain is only twenty 
feet below the surface of the earth. On the wall near by 
we saw an exquisite branching variety of the coral known 
as Tubipora, sixteen inches long by six wide. A number 
of interesting objects have been passed in reaching this 
point ; among which may be mentioned the Everett Rock, 
fallen from above and leaning against the wall; Table 
Rock, at the foot of Sandstone Mountain, and several 
other detached blocks here and there, indicating the pos- 
sibility of some shock as of an earthquake, or other tre- 
mendous force, that hurled them down. 

Thus far we have gone in a southerly direction; but 
now we turn almost due east for somefifteen hundred feet 
and note what we can find. Beyond the spacious Audi- 
torium is Register Avenue, where visitors are allowed 
to inscribe their names, as in a rocky album. At the 
Phosphate Mountain — where the original owner made 
experiments, only to find that it was a false phosphate — 
the cavern divides around a so-called "island" six 
hundred feet long, near whose farther end begins the 
"Old Bed-quilt Cave" already mentioned, and that 
stretches away to the northeast for one thousand five 




Entrance to Colossal Cavern. 




Henry Clay Monument. 



THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 127 

hundred feet and then turns westward for the same dis- 
tance, thus making the surveyed portion three thousand 
feet in all, though often given as having a much greater 
length. In it are pits, domes, tumble-downs, and various 
more or less interesting formations ; but it is not included 
in the route over which visitors are usually taken. 

At the termination of the Long Island is the Pulpit 
on one side and the Dining Room on the other. The 
ceiling of the Dining Room is the native rock, as smooth 
as if finished by trowel and float; a board floor is laid 
over the sand, and there are tables and benches for 
the accommodation of those who wish to lunch. Beyond 
is the Bicycle Avenue, trending to the right for three 
hundred feet and then rejoining the main cave. 

The crystalline formations are wonderful. The roof 
under which we are now passing is spangled with 
efflorescences that mimic the starry heavens, with here 
and there a comet or a meteoric shower. Gypsum crusts 
sometimes hang from above in sections several yards 
square, seemingly ready to drop if jarred. Both 
straight and curved crystals of selenite abound, the 
latter known as " oulopholites. " So many and splendid 
are they in one hall as to cause it to be named "The 
Grand Avenue of Flowers." On the walls single spikes 
six or eight inches long are frequent, and here and 
there we find a branching mass one or two feet long, 
like crystal stag-horns. Delicate lacelike webs are spread 
between clusters of flowers. The Bear-Robe looks like 
a mass of fur spread on the wall to dry; but we find it 
made up of hundreds of crystals of selenite whose tips 
are stained by some black mineral, and the body of the 
mass is a soft grey. There are also fine botryoidal, or 
grapelike, clusters. 



128 THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 

Strange enlargements and ramifications of the cav- 
ern now come to view, with here and there a window- 
like opening into ghostly chambers whence weird ap- 
paritions seem to beckon to ns. Wonders crowd upon 
us. Climbing a steep acclivity, the highest elevation 
in the cave, whence a ladder connects with a short 
passage leading to a bridge across the apex of an enor- 
mous dome whose floor lies one hundred and thirty- 
seven feet below, we drop fireballs, by which the walls 
are illuminated as the masses of flame gyrate to and 
fro. Formerly daring adventurers were lowered by a 
windlass to the bottom of this mighty dome; but now 
there is a less dangerous way. 

We descend a flight of steps and pass through a 
gigantic gateway, twenty feet wide and sixty feet 
high, whose right-hand support is the largest stalag- 
mite in the cavern, its height being fully eighty feet. 
The writer suggested for this noble shaft the name of 
the Henry Clay Monument, and the name was approved 
by the management. On the left of the gateway is the 
finest example of the synclinal it has ever been my lot 
to see below ground. The thick strata above had to 
yield to the enormous pressure brought upon them, and 
were thus crushed into the reversed arches that we be- 
hold. 

Passing reverently through what reminded me of the 
famous Redeemer Gate of the Kremlin at Moscow, we 
descend still farther by stone steps that wind around 
the base of the huge alabaster monument named for 
Kentucky's matchless orator and statesman, and sud- 
denly find ourselves in what seems like an open space, 
while aloft and around us is utter darkness. The guides 
tell us that we are at the lowest level of the cavern, two 
hundred and forty feet vertically lower than the original 




Entrance to Colossal Dome. 




Above Pearly Pool. 



THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 129 

entrance. Our torches do little more than to make the 
darkness visible. Our acetylene lamps cast rays of light 
across to the wall, fifty-six feet distant, but flash upward 
in vain. Burning magnesium ribbon, with which every 
cave-hunter should be supplied, and that can be ignited 
by a simple match, we catch a glimpse of the apex 
of what has fitly been named the Colossal Dome, the 
grandest room in all this region of silence and of night. 

An ingenious method of illumination has been devised 
by Mr. Hunt, making use of the old windlass whereby 
men used to be lowered, as already related. The rope 
has been removed, but a cord takes its place, both ends 
of it being lowered to the floor. To one end was 
fastened a wire holding a fire-basket, in which were put 
oiled rags, chemicals, and a quantity of magnesium 
ribbon. Then, igniting this mass of combustibles, we 
pulled on the other end of the long cord, thus hoisting 
the huge fireball to the apex. This made visible the 
snow-white fungus, many feet long, waving from the 
timbers of the decaying bridge. The drops of water 
falling like shot from the summit to the floor sparkle 
as gems, and add their music to the occasion. We tried 
to fancy how it would seem to have a winter cascade 
thunder down on the rocks where we stood. We raised 
and lowered at will the glowing flre-basket, bringing into 
view the series of immense rings, each eight or ten feet 
thick, that make up the wall, finding them differently 
tinted and some of them finely fringed with stalactitic 
drapery. Half the floor is covered by a pool, whose 
waters escape under a low ledge to regions as yet un- 
explored. Mention should be made of the remarkable 
echoes that add to the charm of this extraordinary dome. 

The Pearly Pool route is entered by a tunnel sixty 
feet long. We pause a moment on the verge of a pit 



130 THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 

eighty-six feet deep, around which are some curiously 
formed stalagmites resembling various birds and beasts. 
Ages ago a big stalactite fell with its tip under the drip- 
pings of a cascade, which left on it a rich nacrous in- 
crustation. The basin, three or four feet wide, that 
catches these waters, is the Pearly Pool, and glistens 
with hundreds of cave pearls. Some nameless, graceless 
scamp has struck his hammer into the middle of it, 
thus making an outlet for the water and terminating 
the pearl-making business, at least for a time. 

The Kangaroo Bend opens into the Snowy Valley, 
some six hundred feet long, where fine gypsum forma- 
tions abound, This valley ends in a tumble-down where 
copious chalybeate springs flow over iron-stained stalag- 
mites. The water is palatable, and it is claimed that 
it possesses valuable medicinal properties. 

It only remains to add a few words about what will 
perhaps be styled the "New Discovery" until some 
more appropriate title shall have been found. It begins 
near the entrance to the cave, and has been surveyed 
for two thousand linear feet. So much of it has to be 
traversed in a stooping position, or on one's hands and 
knees, that its length seems at least twice that distance. 
Patience finds its reward as we are introduced to a 
region utterly unlike anything else in the vicinity, 
though similar places are to be seen in certain caves 
in Indiana. 

The bed-rock is a fine-grained magnesian limestone, 
resembling that used for lithographic purposes. Indeed 
the material has been satisfactorily tested for this use 
since our visit. For many hundred feet the path has 
been artificially cut through this beautiful rock. On 
every hand we behold on walls and roof the most charm- 
ing rosettes and intricately convoluted helictites. The 




Everett Rock. 




Florence Avenue. 



THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. 131 

fact that no names have as yet been given to places and 
formations in the "New Discovery" makes description 
difficult. Helictite Grotto and Rosette Chamber are so 
called on account of the abundance of the formations 
thus indicated. This part of the Colossal Cavern is a 
perfect flower-garden, where the excited fancy may find 
in unsullied loveliness a crystal reproduction of almost 
every floral gem. The management wisely guard these 
matchless decorations from spoliation ; but it is also to be 
hoped that such a wilderness of subterranean charms 
may soon be made accessible (if this has not already been 
done), so that it may be enjoyed by the general public. 
Meanwhile w T e understand the "New Discovery" can be 
visited only by special arrangement with the custodians 
of the cave, and even then only by small parties. The 
general similarity and the close proximity of the Colossal 
and the Mammoth caves make it not at all improbable 
that they are connected by avenues as yet undiscovered. 
On the other hand, it may be that they are permanently 
and completely disconnected by means of such immense 
downfalls as the Eden Valley and the Doyle Valley, 
through which now runs the carriage-road between the 
entrances to the two caverns. 

Anyhow, it is well worth while for the tourist who 
visits one of these vast caverns to take time to see the 
other also. While in many ways similar to each other, 
there are enough points of difference to keep the interest 
alive. In all ages caverns have excited the awe and 
admiration of mankind, and in no part of the known 
world are so many and such magnificent caverns 
clustered together as exist in Edmondson County, Ken- 
tucky. Such a marvelous region is worthy, not merely 
of a hurried visit, but of a leisurely sojourn. 



MAY 24 1912 



. •* 



